Pendraken Miniatures Forum

Pendraken Releases, Requests and Photos! => Photos => Topic started by: Ironduke on 29 September 2014, 09:37:59 AM

Title: Photo detail
Post by: Ironduke on 29 September 2014, 09:37:59 AM
My photos are all a bit crappy, great when taken but lacking definition when uploaded, any ideas what Im doing wrong

Thanks all

Craig
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Duke Speedy of Leighton on 29 September 2014, 10:56:42 AM
Mine always are, I found instead of being clever, just need outdoor lighting, macro lens and practise.
Some of the others use light tents and specialised kit. Hopefully they can be more helpful.
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: paulr on 29 September 2014, 06:51:21 PM
Hi Craig,

An example might help us work out what is going wrong. Do they look ok on the camera and on your PC? Where are you uploading to? :-\
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Leman on 29 September 2014, 06:57:51 PM
Mine sometimes come out not so good because I'm too close to the figures.
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Ironduke on 29 September 2014, 08:50:45 PM
Quote from: paulr on 29 September 2014, 06:51:21 PM
Hi Craig,

An example might help us work out what is going wrong. Do they look ok on the camera and on your PC? Where are you uploading to? :-\

They look great on  PC and iphone, but I have to reduce them to upload and they become pixelated when you zoom in
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: fred. on 29 September 2014, 09:11:57 PM
I think you are reducing the size too much when you upload the photos.

If the initial photo looks good, then you have achieved the first step, which is taking a good photo of a tiny subject.

The next step is to crop the photo so that you get rid of the extra bits around the photo, this is a good way of dropping the total size of the photo, and focuses the photo on the good bits.

Where are you uploading the photos to? Does it have a strange small file limit?

I use Google Picassa, which used to be really good, but it has recently 'upgraded' me to Google Plus and now its a bit too photo-bucket like.

I tend to resize my photos to about 800 pixels across (from a starting image of over 4000 pixels) which still look good (this size can be too big for 10mm and show lots of mistakes!)

can you point us at some examples?
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Ironduke on 30 September 2014, 08:36:47 AM
The pics I take on my iphone, I crop them and email them to myself to get the resize option, medium is always too large so I have to use small. I think I will try downloading them to my PC directly then use photo suite to get the size I'm after, I'll let you know how I get on, an example would be my viking berserkers on the non Pendraken option, thanks guys
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Fenton on 30 September 2014, 08:43:19 AM
Where is Techno when you need him?

He could probably help but you might need to explain what a smartphone is first though
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Leon on 30 September 2014, 02:20:18 PM
Quote from: Fenton on 30 September 2014, 08:43:19 AM
Where is Techno when you need him?

He's gone to buy a new hamster...  :D
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Wulf on 30 September 2014, 03:50:58 PM
When you reduce the size of a JPG, you can also reduce the quality - saves even more space but makes the picture more pixellated. If you reduce the size more than once, you multiply the reduction in quality. Always go back to the original if you choose to reduce the size of a JPG a second time, and make sure quality is set to 80% or better in any case.
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Lord Kermit of Birkenhead on 30 September 2014, 04:30:56 PM
Quote from: Leon on 30 September 2014, 02:20:18 PM
He's gone to buy a new hamster...  :D

WHAT - with 20 Dogs, and an entire grand national field of Horses ?

IanS
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Leon on 30 September 2014, 06:37:38 PM
Quote from: ianrs54 on 30 September 2014, 04:30:56 PM
WHAT - with 20 Dogs, and an entire grand national field of Horses ?

IanS

Have you ever tried fitting a horse in the back of a PC...?!   :D
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Lord Kermit of Birkenhead on 01 October 2014, 06:31:08 AM
Quote from: Leon on 30 September 2014, 06:37:38 PM
Have you ever tried fitting a horse in the back of a PC...?!   :D

Yes - the officer was very annoyed

IanS  ;)
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: nikharwood on 01 October 2014, 09:39:50 AM
 :D ;D :D
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Womble67 on 01 October 2014, 11:21:36 AM
Quote from: Leon on 30 September 2014, 06:37:38 PM
Have you ever tried fitting a horse in the back of a PC...?!   :D

very good  :D

take care

andy
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: paulr on 01 October 2014, 07:07:56 PM
Quote from: Ironduke on 30 September 2014, 08:36:47 AM
The pics I take on my iphone, I crop them and email them to myself to get the resize option, medium is always too large so I have to use small. I think I will try downloading them to my PC directly then use photo suite to get the size I'm after, I'll let you know how I get on, an example would be my viking berserkers on the non Pendraken option, thanks guys

Your viking berserkers pictures are less than 20k which explains why the picture quality is low. I wouldn't resize to less than 100k if I could avoid it, you just lose too much detail.

Rather than reducing that much I suggest using one of the free photo hosting sites and linking to them.

PS Apologies for pulling this thread back on topic, we don't have mounted Police here  ;D
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Dave Fielder on 15 October 2014, 09:36:28 AM
Is there a guide to loading pictures into the text of messages? I've always attached JPGs which is OK but I'd prefer to add pictures. A simple step by step with image sizes please thank you very much to you.
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Ithoriel on 15 October 2014, 10:19:52 AM
Dave, I'm sure there's a guide somewhere here, probably more than one but I find search here so ropey I'd be surprised if you could find them!

If you want to load a picture from another online location (tumblr, photobucket or t'internet generally) find the picture. It needs to be the picture itself and not just a link to the picture - drill down as far as you can.

Once you've found it, right click on it and you'll bring up a menu with an option to Copy Image Location or similar - will presumably vary depending on browser and or operating system. You want to copy the location not the image itself.

In the forum message, I usually set this up first and then drop pics in at the end, put the cursor where you want the image and click on the Insert Image icon (middle row, third icon - looks like a tiny photo or painting).

You will now have something that looks like {img}{/img} - I've replaced the straight brackets [ ] you actually get with { } so the forum doesn't hide the text.

Place the cursor in the middle, between the two ][ brackets, and paste the link you saved earlier

Pictures may fail to display in the forum even if you do this right. For example, if the site with the image is down or moves or removes the image. This can be frustrating :)

For pictures on your PC, copy the image and use a graphics package (you can pick up free ones from MajorGeeks or Tucows websites) to reduce the size of the copy to just below the 128Kb limit. You can then use the Attach function to add it to your post.

If you are loading a large picture you can fit it to the forum page by adding width= to the first img tag. Instead of {img} amend it to read {img width=500} (curly brackets replacing the straight ones actually used again!) A width of between 500 and 750 is usually what you want. NB there is a gap between img and width but not either side of the = sign.

Hope that a) makes sense and b) helps!!
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Dave Fielder on 15 October 2014, 10:28:14 AM
Here is a test then:
(http://www.exmouthwargames.org.uk/media/kunena/attachments/782/Mongols.jpg)

... seems to work but with reduction in quality. Will have to set up an online storage then. Will Dropbox work?
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Dave Fielder on 15 October 2014, 11:07:36 AM
This is from Dropbox image resized to 448 x 336:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/z0pxcibkdfcn83n/P1010525.JPG?dl=0)
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Lord Kermit of Birkenhead on 15 October 2014, 11:42:33 AM
Dave - 2nd is a blank.

IanS
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Dave Fielder on 15 October 2014, 12:00:50 PM
Don't think Dropbox is too friendly for this format ...  :-\
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: toxicpixie on 15 October 2014, 01:56:37 PM
Don't think Dropbox lets you link. Also, if you have a Dropbox account, check your passwords etc - http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/nearly-seven-million-dropbox-passwords-hacked-pictures-and-videos-leaked-in-latest-thirdparty-security-breach-9792690.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/nearly-seven-million-dropbox-passwords-hacked-pictures-and-videos-leaked-in-latest-thirdparty-security-breach-9792690.html)
Title: Re: Photo detail
Post by: Techno on 15 October 2014, 04:18:12 PM
Quote from: Fenton on 30 September 2014, 08:43:19 AM
Where is Techno when you need him?
He could probably help but you might need to explain what a smartphone is first though

I'm back now.....What was the question...and what's a smartphone ?
Seriosly though, I think the question has been answered....Do we know if Ironduke has had better results ?
Cheers - Phil