Post by Tom Rice on Mar 13, 2005 12:03:55 GMT
Just thought I would write this short guide to making your digital camera pictures a little better. Some of you do this anyway but I know a lot of you don't, so here's a few tips which will make your CAWs easier to look at and work with for all of us.
For this guide I needed an example, so I'm using Orton Era's CAW of Trytan. There are a lot of pics done like these ones so sorry to single this one out - it's just for example purposes though.
Anyway here we go:
The CAW was posted with 4 pics, 2 of the body and two of the head, all taken with a digital camera. That is fine, but the problem is, as with many digital cameras it takes pictures very unneccessarily large. Here are the original pics:
img112.exs.cx/img112/9914/dscf00456jm.jpg
img112.exs.cx/img112/8749/dscf00472st.jpg
img112.exs.cx/img112/2631/dscf00485lr.jpg
img112.exs.cx/img112/3096/dscf00497df.jpg
See how massive they are, they don't even fit on my screen and I'm using a very high resolution on a large monitor. Most people are on half the size I am.
I'm on 5x broadband and it took me about 45 seconds to load those 4 pics, image how long that would take for someone on dialup. They aren't even going to bother looking.
So we have two problems: Size, and loading time.
Now look at this pic:
That will only take seconds to load even on a slow connection, it is small so fits on the screen well, and you can see all 4 of the pics at the same time.
With this short guide I encourage everyone taking pics with digital cameras to do it in that style, and for those who don't know how, here's a short walkthrough:
With Microsoft Photo Editor:
If you have photo editor, simply open your picture with that, and use the resize command on the top toolbar (I think it is under edit or image). It's as simple as that with other programs such as paint shop and photoshop too. Then use Paint to put all the images next to each other.
With Microsoft Paint:
Copy and paste your image into paint, if you havn't resized it already, click the corner of the image and drag it so it is smaller, as shown in the screenshots below:
Before:
img140.exs.cx/img140/7742/resize13mi.jpg
After:
img140.exs.cx/img140/8822/resize23fz.jpg
Then choose a different tool on the left hand menu so that the picture isnt selected anymore.
Then choose the select tool again (the one that is a square with dotted lines), select the part of the picture you need, and move that to the top left of the picture.
Before:
img140.exs.cx/img140/8822/resize23fz.jpg
After:
img125.exs.cx/img125/9268/resize33vz.jpg
Do the same thing with the other pictures (if there are more than one) and put each part you need next to each other until it looks like this:
img218.exs.cx/img218/6859/resize43td.jpg
Scroll to the bottom right of the image, and drag the white background back up until it is only the size of the part you want like this:
Before:
img194.exs.cx/img194/1177/resize56wh.jpg
After:
img194.exs.cx/img194/3294/resize67ia.jpg
Then save the image! (File > Save As)
Then upload it on imageshack and post it here on the forums.
Note: If working with more than one image it may be helpful to use two instances of paint, one to resize it, and then copy and paste into the other one to make the final image.
This may seem like a lot of work if you don't know what you're doing, but it really isn't. I've just tried to explain it in detail to those who are unsure of how to work with images. If it's too complicated. You may just want to resize each individual image, save it and upload them. That way you'd still have the 4 pictures but they would be smaller, like this:
img236.exs.cx/img236/715/resize72jv.jpg
img236.exs.cx/img236/7708/resize87dl.jpg
img236.exs.cx/img236/817/resize90mc.jpg
img236.exs.cx/img236/8505/resize109ax.jpg
In the end..
Whatever you do, please try to make your images smaller using some of the methods described above. This will mean they are quicker for you to upload, easier for people to look at, quicker for people to load, and they will also be much easier for me to work with when adding them to the site.
Hope this guide helps and good luck
For this guide I needed an example, so I'm using Orton Era's CAW of Trytan. There are a lot of pics done like these ones so sorry to single this one out - it's just for example purposes though.
Anyway here we go:
The CAW was posted with 4 pics, 2 of the body and two of the head, all taken with a digital camera. That is fine, but the problem is, as with many digital cameras it takes pictures very unneccessarily large. Here are the original pics:
img112.exs.cx/img112/9914/dscf00456jm.jpg
img112.exs.cx/img112/8749/dscf00472st.jpg
img112.exs.cx/img112/2631/dscf00485lr.jpg
img112.exs.cx/img112/3096/dscf00497df.jpg
See how massive they are, they don't even fit on my screen and I'm using a very high resolution on a large monitor. Most people are on half the size I am.
I'm on 5x broadband and it took me about 45 seconds to load those 4 pics, image how long that would take for someone on dialup. They aren't even going to bother looking.
So we have two problems: Size, and loading time.
Now look at this pic:
That will only take seconds to load even on a slow connection, it is small so fits on the screen well, and you can see all 4 of the pics at the same time.
With this short guide I encourage everyone taking pics with digital cameras to do it in that style, and for those who don't know how, here's a short walkthrough:
With Microsoft Photo Editor:
If you have photo editor, simply open your picture with that, and use the resize command on the top toolbar (I think it is under edit or image). It's as simple as that with other programs such as paint shop and photoshop too. Then use Paint to put all the images next to each other.
With Microsoft Paint:
Copy and paste your image into paint, if you havn't resized it already, click the corner of the image and drag it so it is smaller, as shown in the screenshots below:
Before:
img140.exs.cx/img140/7742/resize13mi.jpg
After:
img140.exs.cx/img140/8822/resize23fz.jpg
Then choose a different tool on the left hand menu so that the picture isnt selected anymore.
Then choose the select tool again (the one that is a square with dotted lines), select the part of the picture you need, and move that to the top left of the picture.
Before:
img140.exs.cx/img140/8822/resize23fz.jpg
After:
img125.exs.cx/img125/9268/resize33vz.jpg
Do the same thing with the other pictures (if there are more than one) and put each part you need next to each other until it looks like this:
img218.exs.cx/img218/6859/resize43td.jpg
Scroll to the bottom right of the image, and drag the white background back up until it is only the size of the part you want like this:
Before:
img194.exs.cx/img194/1177/resize56wh.jpg
After:
img194.exs.cx/img194/3294/resize67ia.jpg
Then save the image! (File > Save As)
Then upload it on imageshack and post it here on the forums.
Note: If working with more than one image it may be helpful to use two instances of paint, one to resize it, and then copy and paste into the other one to make the final image.
This may seem like a lot of work if you don't know what you're doing, but it really isn't. I've just tried to explain it in detail to those who are unsure of how to work with images. If it's too complicated. You may just want to resize each individual image, save it and upload them. That way you'd still have the 4 pictures but they would be smaller, like this:
img236.exs.cx/img236/715/resize72jv.jpg
img236.exs.cx/img236/7708/resize87dl.jpg
img236.exs.cx/img236/817/resize90mc.jpg
img236.exs.cx/img236/8505/resize109ax.jpg
In the end..
Whatever you do, please try to make your images smaller using some of the methods described above. This will mean they are quicker for you to upload, easier for people to look at, quicker for people to load, and they will also be much easier for me to work with when adding them to the site.
Hope this guide helps and good luck
