Question about posting pictures.

[Ginger's Mom]

I have dial-up, and I have noticed that some people's pictures always take longer to load than others. Does anyone have any idea why that is? Is it because some people compress before uploading and others don't? Or is the the type of camera/pictures? It seems to be the pictures that look more professional that take longer to load. Is that just a coincidence?

I have noticed it for a while; however, Dorothy39 mentioned, and I also noticed, that a picture that was reposted by another member loaded faster than the original. Just curious. Thanks.

[Karen]

There could be many reasons. It could be that some people are hosting their images on a site your connection is slower to, as to see the photo, you computer is having to travel the Internet to a different place.

It could be that some people didn't compress their files as much as others.

And a "reposted" photo WILL always load faster, as your computer or server has it "cached" from the first time you saw it.

[Ginger's Mom]

Thanks, Karen. I thought that where they had them loaded may have had something to do with it too. As for the second picture loading faster, I mean it actually loaded faster, the repost was up and the initial picture was only about 25% loaded.

[Jessika]

Probably because they compressed their images and others do not. Compressing images DOES degrade quality, but it is only noticable the more you compress. If you compress just a little, it can take file size down A LOT while still retaining most of the image's quailty. Also an image's resolution doesn't necessarily have to do with load time. I can have an 800x600 image that is smaller in file size and loads faster than an image that is 640x480. It's all about compression and HOW the file was saved. GIFs normally tend to load faster than JPGs because GIFs only support a smaller amount of colors. and JPGs tend to load faster than PNGs because PNGs support more colors. Of course, you can have a JPG load faster than a GIF and a PNG load faster than all three, it's all about compression I can put up examples if you'd like!

Karen is 100% correct about everything else though

[Ginger's Mom]

Someone else had mentioned a PNGs, I had never heard of them before. I had heard of jpg (which I guess is what I use), and I have heard of gif (but I am not sure of what that is other than another format for saving pictures). But what you have said is very very interesting. Is PNGs something new? And do you need something special installed on your computer to save pictures as PGNs?

I had not thought about compressing lowering the quality (or, I guess more accurately stated, definition) of the picture.

This is all pretty interesting.

[Dorothy39]

Yes, this is very interesting,

I've always wondered why some digital photos seem to take eons to download, heck, I can wash and wax the car in the amount of time it takes for me to view a set of pictures.

[Randi]

A general rule of thumb: photographic images - save in JPG. Logos and solid color shapes - save in GIF, and remember, you don't need to set the dpi to more that 72, unless you need to print it.

Also, the Save For web removes a lot of extraneous meta data that isn't used for web display.

[Jessika]

PNGs are not new and are not recommended for images viewed online hehe if it is an image for the web, save as a jpg

PNGs are sometimes used when someone wants a high-color image with transparency. GIFs only support a small number of colors, JPGs support much more colors but do not support transparency. PNG combines both worlds but some browsers are still working on compatibility with PNGs (for example, Internet Explorer currently does NOT support transparency in PNGs).

GIFs are used for animations also. All those cute animated avatars and siggies you see are saved as GIFs