Thread: Size

I'm still in the design process and I need some help.
The site I'm building will have a lot of pictures and thats the reason I'm building the site. The people that I'm marketing to want to see pictures and the details in them. I may never meet them face to face or them see my work in person so the pictures of my work are critical.
What size range can I use that want cause slow loading. Bigger is better in my case so they can see the details.

Thanks for your help

Hi Stephen..

I guess it would help to understand the technical side to pictures and their formats so that you can find the balance between display quality and feel of the site against convenience and download speed.. I can offer you this link which contains other links to a couple of technical websites that deal specifically with images..

http://adsenseproject.com/step_4_3.htm

Sorry.. let me correct that link:

http://adsenseproject.com/implementation/step_4_4.htm

(I have a lousy memory)

Thanks ez-ez

That was very interesting info and helpful but are there any pixal size range I should stay within? I will have one picture (unless I change my mind lol) on the index page that will be approximately 400x584. I need a thumbnail gallery to open up to larger images if I can figure out how to do it.

Originally Posted by Stephen G.

Thanks ez-ez

That was very interesting info and helpful but are there any pixal size range I should stay within? I will have one picture (unless I change my mind lol) on the index page that will be approximately 400x584. I need a thumbnail gallery to open up to larger images if I can figure out how to do it.

I think the size you have for the index page picture is reasonable.. I have pictures of that size on my site and they load up pretty quick.. Although, it is the format of the image that dectates it's size.. I'm hoping your images are GIF.

Thumbnails and Galary images can be inserted in BV.. If you expirement with the Gallary feature on the left hand side panel in BV, I'm sure you'll find answers.. I'm not sure if there is a standard common size for thumbnails, I'm not sure if BV sets the size for the thumbnails, but if I am to use thumbnails, I would make them around 100px square.. you want it reasonably small but also clear and inviting.

I will expirement with the Gallary feature and if I find anything interesting I'll certainly let you know.

They are JPEG files

Originally Posted by ez-ez

I'm hoping your images are GIF.

Sorry, Carlos....
Images are always defined as JPG's and GIF's are typically for graphic or textual imagry.

If you try to convert or present a photograph for instance, as a GIF, it will present terriby grainy and lack definition that is expected.
JPG = Photos
GIF = Graphics

....and 100 wide is pretty big for an 800 wide page to set thumbnails at, isn't it?

My understanding is that they are all technically considered as 'Images' which can be graphics or pictures and photos.

JPEG is definitely better for 'LARGE' Pictures.. But, I wouldnt go wasting my space on JPEG if the image is no more than 600x600..

These 2 images are 250 x 165, 1 is GIF & the other is JPEG.. does the difference in quaity warrant the size increament? MORE IMPORTANTLY.. GIF MAY NOT ALWAYS BE SMALLER THAN JPEG.. MANY BETTER QUALITY JPEGS ARE SMALLER THAN GIF'S. THE NUMBER OF COLORS AND EFFECTS ARE THE FACTORS YOU NEED TO CONSIDER.






I always saw site that contain very tiny little thumbnails.. My website itsef contains images 40X55px.. which is small.. However, these are not thumbnails and I don't care for them to be attractive or detailed.. If you look at Stock Images websites they always make sure their thumbnails are decent size so that they show the detail and are attractive to the visitor to click on.

Just my opinion.

I too use alot of jpeg images on my site. I have never found the quality in converting a jpeg to a gif as you have above. Lucky for you, what are your tips there?

I have used the thumbnail gallery and the rotator (rotator used for a slideshow for my purposes) Here are my thoughts.

Thumbnail Gallery - You are limited to the amount of photos you can put on one page. I at times need 100 or more photos, and over the next six months will be needing to add 250 or more photos to one page. You can size your thumbnail images on your page to any size you like, I agree they need to be a half decent size to allow viewers to see and catch their interest enough to click. Here is an example of thumbnails I used on a page and the size I used to catch the interest.
www.halifaxwolverinesjra.com/darcywalsh.html

Rotator - Used as a slideshow for my purposes. I have been successful in adding up to 100 or more images at a time using this method, and the images are very large, although reduced in size (read further below). The only thing is, unless there is a trick I am missing and I am still trying to find out, is that you have to add your images to the rotator one by one, very time consuming as it requires two clicks per photo.
An example of the use of the rotator
http://www.halifaxwolverinesjra.com/aug28photos.html


Tips - I have found that adding any more than a couple of dozen photos in the thumbnail format on one page takes forever to load. I have found using the rotator you can used as many as you like, (well I haven't found my limit yet).

- My photos I take originally are 2000 pixels x 1500 pixels, I reduce them in size to 400 pixels x 300 pixels, this still gives a pretty large in size photo, (about 30 - 40 kbs as opposed to 700 or 800 kbs per photo) It's not a good idea to tug on your photos once you have them in place or they will distort.

- I always check my page for load time by viewing my page as a regular viewer in internet explorer, I go to file, edit with microsoft front page, and a new page will open for you, down in the bottom right corner you will see a timer coming on, you will see something like 78 seconds over a 28.8, click on the 28.8 and a smaller menu will come up and hit isdn, this is the setting you should work with for page loading times, it is nice if this says anywhere around 14 seconds, some of my pages do, but some also say 20 seconds, 23 seconds, 19 seconds, etc., but your aim is 14 seconds or as close as you can get to it, you are then just breezing through your site without any delay whatsoever.

- If you need to protect your pictures from internet thieves, not an entirely fool proof script, but one that will stop the majority of browsers is this below.


<script language="Javascript1.2">
// ***********************************************
// AUTHOR: WWW.CGISCRIPT.NET, LLC
// URL: http://www.cgiscript.net
// Use the script, just leave this message intact.
// Download your FREE CGI/Perl Scripts today!
// ( http://www.cgiscript.net/scripts.htm )
// ***********************************************
message = "PUT WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY WHEN THE USER RIGHT CLICKS HERE";
function NoRig***lick(b) {
if(((navigator.appName=="Microsoft Internet Explorer")&&(event.button > 1))
||((navigator.appName=="Netscape")&&(b.which > 1))){
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
document.onmousedown = NoRig***lick;
// -->
</script>


Hope this helps.....

Originally Posted by LadyEye

I too use alot of jpeg images on my site. I have never found the quality in converting a jpeg to a gif as you have above. Lucky for you, what are your tips there?

I have used the thumbnail gallery and the rotator (rotator used for a slideshow for my purposes) Here are my thoughts.

Thumbnail Gallery - You are limited to the amount of photos you can put on one page. I at times need 100 or more photos, and over the next six months will be needing to add 250 or more photos to one page. You can size your thumbnail images on your page to any size you like, I agree they need to be a half decent size to allow viewers to see and catch their interest enough to click. Here is an example of thumbnails I used on a page and the size I used to catch the interest.
www.halifaxwolverinesjra.com/darcywalsh.html

Rotator - Used as a slideshow for my purposes. I have been successful in adding up to 100 or more images at a time using this method, and the images are very large, although reduced in size (read further below). The only thing is, unless there is a trick I am missing and I am still trying to find out, is that you have to add your images to the rotator one by one, very time consuming as it requires two clicks per photo.
An example of the use of the rotator
http://www.halifaxwolverinesjra.com/aug28photos.html


Tips - I have found that adding any more than a couple of dozen photos in the thumbnail format on one page takes forever to load. I have found using the rotator you can used as many as you like, (well I haven't found my limit yet).

- My photos I take originally are 2000 pixels x 1500 pixels, I reduce them in size to 400 pixels x 300 pixels, this still gives a pretty large in size photo, (about 30 - 40 kbs as opposed to 700 or 800 kbs per photo) It's not a good idea to tug on your photos once you have them in place or they will distort.

- I always check my page for load time by viewing my page as a regular viewer in internet explorer, I go to file, edit with microsoft front page, and a new page will open for you, down in the bottom right corner you will see a timer coming on, you will see something like 78 seconds over a 28.8, click on the 28.8 and a smaller menu will come up and hit isdn, this is the setting you should work with for page loading times, it is nice if this says anywhere around 14 seconds, some of my pages do, but some also say 20 seconds, 23 seconds, 19 seconds, etc., but your aim is 14 seconds or as close as you can get to it, you are then just breezing through your site without any delay whatsoever.

- If you need to protect your pictures from internet thieves, not an entirely fool proof script, but one that will stop the majority of browsers is this below.


<script language="Javascript1.2">
// ***********************************************
// AUTHOR: WWW.CGISCRIPT.NET, LLC
// URL: http://www.cgiscript.net
// Use the script, just leave this message intact.
// Download your FREE CGI/Perl Scripts today!
// ( http://www.cgiscript.net/scripts.htm )
// ***********************************************
message = "PUT WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY WHEN THE USER RIGHT CLICKS HERE";
function NoRig***lick(b) {
if(((navigator.appName=="Microsoft Internet Explorer")&&(event.button > 1))
||((navigator.appName=="Netscape")&&(b.which > 1))){
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
document.onmousedown = NoRig***lick;
// -->
</script>


Hope this helps.....

Hi, I just was looking at this software for a site. It’s not free! But for $39.00 it’s pretty good. Hope you don’t mind, but I used some of your images as a test & to see if it was of any use to you?. The nice thing about the software is that you can load the album with one image or a folder at a time & it converts all your images to a show screen size/thumbnail size & save the main image for a large view when clinking on enlargement. It is just a photo album & has its limitations, but worth a look. Where you see a thin grey line below the golf trips, this part houses a menu bar that enables you to link to other parts of your site. I just forgot to enable this when I uploaded. There is a link on the bottom of the album for more info.

Link to my test album.
http://www.collectors-info.com/test.html

Chris.
PS. One image is not working? Not sure on this just yet. Let me know when you have seen it & I will take it off line if you want.

Originally Posted by Collectors-info

Hi, I just was looking at this software for a site. It’s not free! But for $39.00 it’s pretty good. Hope you don’t mind, but I used some of your images as a test & to see if it was of any use to you?. The nice thing about the software is that you can load the album with one image or a folder at a time & it converts all your images to a show screen size/thumbnail size & save the main image for a large view when clinking on enlargement. It is just a photo album & has its limitations, but worth a look. Where you see a thin grey line below the golf trips, this part houses a menu bar that enables you to link to other parts of your site. I just forgot to enable this when I uploaded. There is a link on the bottom of the album for more info.

Link to my test album.
http://www.collectors-info.com/test.html

Chris.
PS. One image is not working? Not sure on this just yet. Let me know when you have seen it & I will take it off line if you want.

Oh wow Chris ... this is totally awesome, it's everything I would need ... and no I do not mind you using the photos, keep them up there as your test album as long as you like ... they look terrific there if I must say so myself .... so is this your software? Where would one order it? Any specials for testers, lol .... any freebies for struggling wolverine teams, lol, I think I just have to have it though .... very very impressive!!

okay found the link about the software, thanks ....

Originally Posted by LadyEye

Oh wow Chris ... this is totally awesome, it's everything I would need ... and no I do not mind you using the photos, keep them up there as your test album as long as you like ... they look terrific there if I must say so myself .... so is this your software? Where would one order it? Any specials for testers, lol .... any freebies for struggling wolverine teams, lol, I think I just have to have it though .... very very impressive!!

This is the link http://www.webgallerywizard.com/go/index.htm & it’s nothing to do with me, but I just liked the size & style, plus the way you can either put it up as a whole page or the same as I did & placed it in an iframe. But remember there are loads of freebies out there & in the fantastico area in c panel. If you do like this! I would personally put it in its own folder as I believe it automatically uploads three images to every one. So your public area would get a bit of a mess if you load it here. You can download it free as a test, but all the images have a copyright on them until you purchase the software.

Good luck

Chris.

PS. The test album only shows the golf one I made up, bur if you want to categorise your images they would all be placed to the right on the home page as different albums.

PPS. Ha! You got there before me with the posting?

Chris

Your last information about putting each group of pics in its own folder to upload is more important than ever when you said that my public are would be a mess, - you are absolutely correct and after 4 days and one other weekend of photo taking, about 800 or more photos are up in my messy room unfiled in their own folder .... eeks ... glad I heard about this now as by the end of the year I would have had 25,000 or more of these messy images ...

I love the Halifax.. website.. and I think the software Chris sggested is awesome and well suited.. I would say Lady should consider using it.

I am not into the photo galary or thumbnail business, but if I was, I would definitely use it.. I use photoshop to mnipulate and save images.

Lady.. you are right about scripts being not entirely fool proof.. and that's why I just don't use them..

25,000 images is a lot.. so it's important to know how you will be managing them now than get stuck with a daunting task later..

I don't see any use of that software for me at the moment, but I'm getting it anyways.

Hi, Ah! Sorry, when I said about the folder part, I only noticed that when I went to upload I see the software going into overtime & appears to make 3 images from the one. But looking through my c panel there is only the 6 or so images that I used of yours. A lot of the other images where the template for showing the slide show being uploaded. (I’m new to this software as well)
As for the folder/directory part I was thinking about if you do use a bit of software like this or the ones in c panel, it may be better to create an album with X amount of images (IE: 1 months worth of matches), then upload that album into a folder/directory of its own. Then create another album & place this in another folder/directory within the 1st folder. With this software you can create as many albums as you like & then link it the same way as you had done before on your site. You could have just 1 page with one iframe with all your links on the same page on drop down menus & link the albums to show in the iframe? With the amount of images you are talking about? This maybe a way to keep them organised. Bit like the links below.

Good luck! it will be a lot of work.

Chris.

http://www.halifaxwolverinesjra.com/photo/album1/maymatches.html
http://www.halifaxwolverinesjra.com/photo/album2/junematches.html
http://www.halifaxwolverinesjra.com/photo/album2/julymatches.html

I think I definitely have to keep the photos organized, and perhaps I will make a new folder for each game, just in the same way i have them stored on my computer ... it's an awesome looking program and the price is not bad ... I will look into the fantastico options, I had a peak today, but didn't explore a whole lot, if anyone knows whether or not the gallerys in fantastico provide the same features as this or not, it would save me looking further into it .... I am thinking not since ez-ez is going to get it ...

one question I have is this(not necessarily related to this photo album, just storing and saving images in general) okay here's my question ....

If once I have uploaded my folder of images and published them on my page, do I need keeping them in the same location on my computer or am I free to move them around? or would this disrupt my files already published?

Thanks for any help ....

Think you may have to do a little test with the software on moving your images around? I assume that if something has a link to it & you move it to another folder, you will lose the link. But with this software it may? make a copy of the image & place it in its own folder within the software. But once you have uploaded your album will be fine on site. (assuming you don’t move the photos in c panel) The only reason that you may want to leave them where they are on your machine is if you want to update the album & republish for any reason. Try the free PRO download & have a play around. It really quick to make an album.
It may also be worth having a look at this post to see how the photo album freebies work.
http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/customer-website-reviews-your-testing-ground/11857-jalbum-porta.html


Chris.

Oh! I made an enquiry at this software company to see if the software could be linked to Photo bucket or yahoo & they said this.

Dear Chris,

Thank you for contacting us and your thoughtful feedback. Version 2.0, to be
released later this year, will offer easy theme editing from within the
program, to enable more personalized themes.

Supporting photo hosting services like Photobucket can indeed be very
helpful to users. From a practical perspective however, it may be difficult
to achieve without downgrading the user experience. The galleries produced
by Web Gallery Wizard require images at specific sizes to fit nicely in the
gallery layout. It is something we can take a further look into.

Something we are considering to implement in 2.0 or shortly thereafter is
something similar to your suggestion but in the realm of videos. That is to
present in the gallery videos that are actually hosted at YouTube.com.

Please contact us should you have any other feedback or questions. We
appreciate your business.

Awfully good well researched info for me Chris, thank you very much for your time, i actually have a ton of videos hosted on utube under the user name LadyEye as well, I uploaded all of my videos there last year, around 150 of them, with blue voda I am going to keep them right with my site but still may offer them in utube as the exposure it creates worldwide for the website and the players, and to satisfy the few subscribers to my videos there ... The same with my photos, I used yahoo last season, I have probably like 75 or more photo albums up there.

You see I was unaware of this web hosting last year and I used *******s as a fan site etc. I did not do the official site last year, using *******s it cost me a fortune in comparison to the one price I pay here, I constantly ran out of bandwidth, load times were slow, weekends without a website due to some technical problem or other, you were not able to be creative with layouts, there was not a support forum but they had live support, this is just so so much better, not to down *******s so much, but this is just one million times better ..... one million million times better and now the photo album, things just can't get any better.

I wonder if the video section will be part of just a simple upgrade or if one would have to buy the entire software again? Hmm ... something to consider as well .....

Thanks

Originally Posted by LadyEye

Awfully good well researched info for me Chris, thank you very much for your time, i actually have a ton of videos hosted on utube under the user name LadyEye as well, I uploaded all of my videos there last year, around 150 of them, with blue voda I am going to keep them right with my site but still may offer them in utube as the exposure it creates worldwide for the website and the players, and to satisfy the few subscribers to my videos there ... The same with my photos, I used yahoo last season, I have probably like 75 or more photo albums up there.

You see I was unaware of this web hosting last year and I used *******s as a fan site etc. I did not do the official site last year, using *******s it cost me a fortune in comparison to the one price I pay here, I constantly ran out of bandwidth, load times were slow, weekends without a website due to some technical problem or other, you were not able to be creative with layouts, there was not a support forum but they had live support, this is just so so much better, not to down *******s so much, but this is just one million times better ..... one million million times better and now the photo album, things just can't get any better.

I wonder if the video section will be part of just a simple upgrade or if one would have to buy the entire software again? Hmm ... something to consider as well .....

Thanks

Hah! I guarantee it will be chargeable, but hopefully with a similar price to their photo album. Good luck with the project, not sure how you are going to catalogue this very large project, but putting a date/number/code in the URL might help.

Cheers.

Chris.

I think you are exactly right with the date and number code with this project. And then one only needs to have the memory to draw from a certain game a certain photo they need, lol ... I also take alot of individual shots of the players and create their own photo albums, I end taking a fair amount of pics each game, like 300 or more and I then break them up into what I call action shots and players profile pics, then separate the players profile pics by player, make their album and put the rest into game photos ... yeah, they all really like it though ....

thanks so much for all your help .... tomorrow I shall test the albums, freshly in the morning I will start and if Bill can have my tea shipped to me by mid morning that would be appreciated .... :)

Thanks :)

StephenG:

I too had as gallery size problem, my solution was to reorganize my galleries (espicially the dogs gallery) into subsets (size by weight) and additional pages. The bigger the project the more pages. I will eventually have 7 rows of 7 coloumbs of thumbnails inserted in a all encompassing I-frame for enlargement purposes. I still haven't gotten any feed back on load time for any of these pages on low speed (28 mbps) dial up modem. This number is my shot in the dark. If ten people would use similar tecnique with different number of thumbs, a graph could me made ploting thumbs VS. load time for that tecnique. As far as I have researched no one has bothered to do this. It would be nice if the designers of these programs did these kind of studies, then every one would know where they stand. I am afraid until such a time we stand alone (together).

P.S. Carlos is more than a bright boy, his tec exposure alone is reason enough to heed his postings. Me, I still learn things the hard way (trial and error), but am always willimg to share the little I know with any one who will listen, and learning more every day.

P.P.S. I am not finished with the reorganization, so the new pages aren't
linked to my site yet.

hi ewry bady i luking sam programm for maik slide show for my web sait do you now any free programm?????????

Originally Posted by ivarok79

hi ewry bady i luking sam programm for maik slide show for my web sait do you now any free programm?????????

Hi Ivarok

In your control panel, down on the bottom right, you will see a blue smiley face, this is called fantastico, in fantastico there are several free photo albums, which include slideshows, for you to download and install and use with your blue voda website .... One that comes to mind and does a wonderful job is jalbum ..... you can find them there, they are free to use ....

Also within your blue voda website builder, on the left hand side tool bar, near the bottom, you will find the gallery, here you can create your own slide show right on your page of your website.

Both are useful, it would depend on the amount of photos you put in each.

You can move your photos/whatever in your BV folder and it will not affect the online website at all. However, if you try to edit one of the files in your BV folder you will find that the images/whatever will be missing on every page. That's because you have broken the progression that you used to make the page originally. Believe me, I know.....LOL
Thankfully I had backed up my entire BV forlder before trying this.
I downloaded the trial Pro version and made Albums quite easily. I FTP'd them to a "test" folder in my public_html folder.
I cannot however figure out how to view them. Any suggestions?

I tried using the JAlbum feature earlier this year. After much help, I was able to figure it out. Unfortunately it was over a month before I could get back to it and I can't remember an iota of the information.

Check it out

http://www.zone5pix.com/Our-Family/

Really nice job on the album, only wish I could get myself that organized ... soon, soon ....