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Sauron
International Hazard
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Photoshop is expensive for the fukll version.
ACDSee is just fine for resizing jpgs and I think can be had as shareware.
Go to shareware.com and you can find a lot of stuff that will work.
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woelen
Super Administrator
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As already mentioned before, go for GIMP. This is really good, and it is free:
www.gimp.org
All pictures on my website were processed with GIMP. It allows scaling, using cubic splines, followed by subsequent sharpening. The resulting images
are really good and it is easy to do. There is no excuse to post extremely large images, nor sacrificing image quality, when scaling down.
Use of MS-Paint is simply terrible. That totally sucks. It cripples your images and makes them unsuitable for web-publishing (or even any other
purpose).
Photoshop also is a very nice software package, but I prefer GIMP, simply because it is free and open source. I encourage others to use open source as
well, there are many good pieces of software out there.
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12AX7
Post Harlot
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I use L-View Pro 1.D2/32. Old, and small. A shame it doesn't do bilinear (or other) filtering on scaling.
A popular freeware program is Irfanview, which I think is available for most OSes.
Incidentially Woelen, I use MS Paint for my electronics schematics. 
Tim
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Chris The Great
Hazard to Others
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Registered: 29-10-2004
Location: Canada
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Bittorrent will satisfy all your needs for expensive editing programs.
I find the more advanced programs do a better job, since they also allow you to compress images as well. I would normally resize the image, and then
would compress to the point where it would not be noticable in quality when saving (I never edited the original image files). This provided images of
800x600 resolution, around 80kB in size, so not only did they fit screens nicely, dialup users weren't murdered by them. Of course, I got a new
computer and have not since replaced that program, so I'm usually around 350kB atm.
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Rosco Bodine
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Actually the images should be held to something less than 800X600 to allow margin for the usual toolbar encroachments , which otherwise will result in
scrollbar equipped images .
Many people use a vertical right margin desktop toolbar as opposed to the horizontal . Vertical scrolling is never
any issue since that is conventional layout regardless of
screen resolution settings , to have the page scroll vertically , as if it was a virtual printout on linked paper .
It is fully the image width alone which causes a problem ,
when it becomes a horizontal panorama wider than about 670 pixels on a standard width monitor which
is set for the standard web browsing display width
of 800 , by 600 vertical .
80% of full display width is what somebody said was
about right , and that would be 640 pixels which is
even a little less than what I was guessing just looking at it , not putting a scale across my screen and doing
the math .
The only way an 800 by 600 image would display without
scrollbars appearing is in full screen mode , which is a
nuisance to accommodate unless that full resolution is
especially required for clarity on some engineering drawing or something . So don't even get the idea
that 800 X 600 is the usual recommended image width , when that is the *maximum* rendering capability for that particular viewing environment where
the image will be displayed , you only want to use that maximum for a CAD display or something that is the exception , and not the rule . An
ordinary viewed image for informal ordinary
web displayed pictures should be only ~80% of that 800 ,
to avoid having to scroll it horizontally or go to full screen mode .
I just scaled my own screen , and 8% of the 800 pixels full
width is oocupied by the toolbar , vertical on the side of the screen , so that leaves at ~90% 720 pixels maximum for the page display , in the 800 by
600 resolution display setting .
But the way Polverone has the margins set for the formatting
of messages , the active and viewed part of the window where typed messages appear is much smaller , only about
500 pixels .
So really , any images over about 500 pixels in width will disturb the existing text formatting . I just put a transparent
scale over my own display and measured these .
So the fact is , to avoid disturbing the text formatting , because of the fixed amounts of screen width already
spent on borders and other fixed quantity columns ,
the actual available width for posting images that will not
encroach on other screen real estate is closer to 500 pixels
width than it is close to 800 pixels .
I think I measured everything pretty close and these numbers are about right .
Has anybody actually posted a few test images to see exactly where the limiting pixel width occurs that begins
to disturb the text formatting ?
Update : Confirmation on the 500 pixel width limit is
already available in a sample picture that was posted by Polverone in the first post in the file attachments thread
where he posted a test image having a 480 pixel width ,
which almost fills the width of the text formatted window .
Here's the page link
https://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=603
I scaled it and it looks like 505 pixels is the line to line
width of the undisturbed text window , so for a nice round
number of 500 pixels width is *exactly* the limit where the image width should be set for attached images to prevent disturbing the text formatting
window width for messages .
So .....500 pixels width limit looks like the magic number .
[Edited on 28-4-2007 by Rosco Bodine]
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woelen
Super Administrator
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On my website most images are 500x667 pixels and that allows good detail, without the need to scroll horizontally. Most people nowadays have at least
1024 horizontal resolution, many people even have 1280 or more. The size in kBytes usually is between 30 and 50 kBytes, which even is acceptable for
dial-up connections. I must admit though that the animations in my website are much larger, but one simply cannot make good animations within just 100
kByte or so.
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Rosco Bodine
Banned
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I have a 19" high resolution monitor , 1920 x 1440 , .20 mm dot pitch , but it is entirely beside the point what resolution capability you have ,
when as a general rule by far the conventional web browsing is setup for 800X600 resolution desktop setting , as that is the best tradeoff for legible
size of printed material , in mixture with images . 800X600 is just pretty much the screen size selected for general use . But remember that is the
total screen real estate in full screen mode , and the actual available viewing area within a normal displayed and framed page is only a smaller box ,
displayed as an active portion of that 800X600 pixel space .
Here is what 480 pixels wide looks like .
Here is what 500 pixels wide looks like . See how the image
is just approaching the limit of the borders for the frame in which the text is appearing ?
<-----------------------------------------------text formatting width----------------------------------------------->
As you can see the text formatting width is at 500 pixels ,
and then the word wrap should occur for the next line .
Posted images are not clipped at the 500 pixel width limit
so that is what screws up the text formatting , where posted images appear in the same "box" as the text .
Another formatting problem is due to the message reply box not being at the same 500 pixel width setting so that its behavior in word wrapping follows
precisely that behavior as the displayed message when it is posted . Everybody bitches at me for my strangely formatted messages , when it isn't my
fault at all .....but the screwed up forum software ,
which can't match the word wrapping that is done in the reply box where the reply is being typed with what occurs in word wrapping that is actually
displayed .
[Edited on 29-4-2007 by Rosco Bodine]
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franklyn
International Hazard
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I believe the issues you raise are attributable to your browser's "view" setting.
specifically the text sizing.
Here is my view at screen resolution of 1152 X 864 on a 20 inch diagonal screen
with text set at default , medium , the pictures appear quite small , about 1/3
the full width of the screen. Note the scroll bar at the right but none below.
You will have to rotate the *.pdf image counterclockwise to the left to view
correctly in the Adobe Acrobate viewer.
Also for some reason you have to download the file by right clicking it and
selecting the "save target as" option, it will not open directly, at least for me.
Attachment: Bodine screen.pdf (170kB)
This file has been downloaded 1480 times
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8015
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Also for me, the pictures posted by Rosco are quite small and only appr. 60% of the width of the forum's text pane is used up by the images. And then,
I even have only a smaller window on my screen, I only use appr. 80% of my total screen width. The monitor I am working on is a 19'' monitor, with a
resolution of 1280x1024 pixels.
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Rosco Bodine
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I can set my screen to 1152X864 and duplicate that view .
But why do that to accomodate a picture on a website that is 99% text content , when it makes the text difficultly
and uncomfortably readable as the price for displaying
wide images ?
IBM set the SVGA 800X600 standard in ~1996 and
a higher "standard" of 1024X768 came into some use ~2000 , but really for most purposes the old SVGA 800X600 is still better , easier on the eyes .
Because even at the largest text size in 1024X768 , the text looks like the ingredients list on the label of an eyedrops bottle ,
and is uncomfortable to the eyes .
Some websites have gone to the newer 1024X768 ,
but many still are formatted for 800X600 and IMO it is
better for anyone who spends much time in front of a screen . 800X600 remains the de facto standard for
most applications including web browsing .
I just tried changing my desktop upwards to 1024X768
and it does add some width to the screen for images and text , but the text legibility suffers to the point that it isn't worth the cost . I tried
mixing many different settings ,
but *none* of it was any improvement over 800X600 in
terms of overall utility and comfort of viewing .
The value of the higher resolutions is for detailed graphics
where a great deal of finely detailed imaging needs to be displayed as much as possible on a non scrolling view ,
like a blueprint or CAD drawing for example .....or possibly for image editing or gaming applications in full screen mode , environments where text is
not the emphasis ,
but the space is principally dedicated to images .
IMO , in text rich environments 800X600 SVGA is still the better standard and most assuredly so on any screen 19"
or less .
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-3513_11-6081709.ht...
Also , just as a case in point , ironically the article above is
being displayed on a webpage that is not optimized for 800X600 display setting . It has a horizontal scrollbar
on my screen .
In contrast , the next page is formatted perfectly , or is
using an XML capability or JAVA , so that it displays perfectly
on my screen at 800X600 .
http://www.smartwebby.com/web_site_design/advanced_web_desig...
Just out of curiosity I entered the address for this page
to see what kind of coding problems might exist .
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%...
[Edited on 8-5-2007 by Rosco Bodine]
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Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
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Mood: metastable
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I use a 19" flat panel and I agree that 800x600 is the way to go
I have enough trouble with text as it is.
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Rosco Bodine
Banned
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These fellows must be wearing lenses the thickness of
coke bottle bottoms 
Me , nowadays I navigate mostly by smell .
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franklyn
International Hazard
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Funny you should say, I wear reading glasses 1.75 diopter to read on screen
since I would otherwise need the Windows Accessibility Magnifier. It seems
the height of folly to spend $1100 for a monitor that can display natively a
dot pitch of .25 mm at 1600 X 1200 and then view it at one quarter of its
resolution in 800 X 600 VGA standard. I expect in time when you will need
to set your resolution to a 320 X 240 DOS standard you will see the elegance
of my choice.
Given the context however the 480 pixel width can be the standard on this
forum. Optionally uploading as a file or just thumbnails with links will provide
the larger format needed for detail of photocopied or imaged text.
.
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Rosco Bodine
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You sound like you are about as blind as I am
We need a jewelers loupe to read our wristwatch 
I use 1.75 for onscreen reading , and 2.25 for printed material , even more for fine work on IC's and such .
One of the uses of the large monitors is so that farsighted old people can sit back farther and focus
at a lower diopter ....right ?
W3C compliance supposedly makes a lot of problems disappear , as it displays an adaptable page which provides good viewing for a range of maybe 3 or 4
different resolutions upwards from and including 800X600 .
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ut3/eval/
Indeed it is the height of folly from a technical standpoint
to be viewing a 19" highres monitor at 800X600 because
of software based rendering limitations . But when it comes to M$ , you don't get whatever you thought was so great that was being advertised .
Bill's too cheap to hire the best and do it right . That's why it is perpetual
patch and fix and new versions , mostly trying to get it right what wasn't done right in the first place . Windows
is the never finished work in progress modeled after
Howard Hughes spruce goose . It flies just in time to
be superceded by the next version , and then you wait for that to fly right the first time too , observing a vicious cycle that is a money transport
from your pocket to Bill's The entire rest of the computer industry follows
the same template .....racketeering gone high tech .
Inkjet printer cartridges are a glaring example of a deliberately crippled technology . Reminds me of that
old Steppenwolf song " Pusher Man " .
The resolution issue is also about user AGE , and old eyes , combined with the lack of entirely flexible and convenient font sizing selection in a
stepwise manner being provided by many OS's still in use , nearly as old as the users and their old machines ......tens of millions of which are still
in everyday use . If the native capability of the OS was what it should be , it would accomplish the same function of the accessibility magnifier
seamlessly and automatically , without having to invoke it as a special tool .
I don't get one operating system fully tweaked and
customized to my liking before M$ comes out with a
"new improved" OS .....which until it is in SP3 isn't
generally worth a damn anyway and could be called
a public beta .....until the next time for an upgrade ,
which would probably be more honestly called SP3 .
What incarnation of NT is Vista anyway #9 ? , and will the
new M$ OS's start having roman numerals when they run out of catchy promo names ?
The problem you speak about of not using the monitors capability is OS related . Hell , I haven't even looked into
XP , or even WinME , much less the current bendover BF from M$ "Vista" to see if seamless font scaling is available
without a registry hack . You would think that capability
would be a "DUH" no-brainer for *ANY* OS costing
>$200 as a native capability . One certainly should be able to select fonts on an incremental numerical point sizing , as opposed to merely
"small" or "medium" , ect. But M$ in its infinite wisdom hasn't set it up that way .
You can select it that way within word processing apps ,
but not across the entire GUI as a universal setting .
If there's a fix I don't know about there , please tell me
and I'll go up to the 1024X768 , which is almost there
for me but not quite , because of the text size diminution
even at the largest text size setting .
| Quote: | Update:
Hold the phone ! I think I may have found it . The font size setting options are possibly there , but the panel for the settings changes has been
grayed out on my display properties menu , which has a " hidden layer " of active window "appearance" adjustments I have never noticed before, much
less changed .....and maybe this will make the global GUI font size changes I am needing . I am going to try changing the resolution higher again and
seeing if the font sizing will go up enough to be equivalent legibility to what I have now . This could take awhile . Looks like video driver and
physical monitor settings are also going to have to be made to go along with this change in software setting .
Update#2: After working with different custom font settings
and different higher resolutions and comparing the quality of
icons and text .....I am right back at 800X600 as the optimum
combination , and certainly not for trying many different possible combinations , hoping to find a combination which would allow use of a higher
resolution where everything
would still be properly rendered .....but no joy on that .
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Hey I don't like it either ....I don't even like still running
Win98 as a base OS on my main drive , and XP on a
boot select ( along with a few tens of millions of other people)....but I'll do that until hell freezes over ,
before I'll spend $10K on "upgraded" OS specific software
every time that a new round of obsoleted good software
is made legacy status by the next offering from Fisher Price .....er , I mean microshaft . The software cartel
can sell it somewhere else .
DOS , like rock and roll ( and Linux ) is here to stay
And think about all the portable stuff out there now ,
where the resolution is definitely an issue without some sort of adaptive scaling , because of the small screens
on PDA's and the like or even notebooks . Going too high
on webpage resolutions will cause real headaches there .
[Edited on 8-5-2007 by Rosco Bodine]
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8015
Registered: 20-8-2005
Location: Netherlands
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What is all this about 800x600 resolution? I use 1280x1024 and at home I use 1440x1152 at a 19'' monitor. You can use scalable fonts of large size to
avoid the very small characters. So, I see no reason to stick to 800x600. I simply select larger fonts (150% on Windows XP is fine for me, 16 pt size
on Linux KDE desktops also is fine to me). By using larger fonts on high resolution screens you obtain very beautiful smooth characters, and not the
pixel-artifacts you have at 800x600.
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Rosco Bodine
Banned
Posts: 6370
Registered: 29-9-2004
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Yeah I just found a previously grayed out scalable font settings panel that I have never used before , which evidently should cure the whole issue .
See my update above , but this will take awhile , because there is a sync of adjustments required between the monitor , the video driver , and the
software ....all three work together , and I have to spend some time with it . It definitely is not any simple on-the-fly software only settings
change on this machine . Screen size borders change , so I have a black border to get rid of , before I can see the actual font size increase .
Update: No joy on the higher resolutions and custom settings for font sizes , menus and icons did not scale to match and everything would not
integrate smoothly , the
overall image was inferior to that provided by 800X600 ,
so I am back to the 800X600 as the best overall choice .
The font scaling was looking good and if the icons and menus
had the same flexibility of adjustment ....yeah it would be fine and you could fine tune *any* resolution to "look good" ,
as good as your monitor is capable of showing it . XP probably does it better , and I sometimes boot up XP and use it . I'll check it out later and
see if XP fares better at
the higher resolution settings , instead of throwing out the baby with the bath water as 98 does at above 800X600 .
I'll go back and work on 98 again later .....maybe try a few more combinations of menu and icon size settings to try to get the same coordination of
icon sizes as seems to occur automatically at 800X600 . It even screwed up the icons in my system tray , and toolbars . It looks like you have to
basically redo everything .....not just the fonts , but toolbars , menus , *all* icons , some for which I can't even find a sizing control location ,
if there even is one . Basically in 98 you have to manually do a resizing of *eveything* to match a different resolution setting , and then save
those settings as a custom made "default" display profile optimized for the particular resolution . At higher resolutions it isn't an automatic
default display profile like it is for the most part at 800X600 .
[Edited on 8-5-2007 by Rosco Bodine]
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franklyn
International Hazard
Posts: 3026
Registered: 30-5-2006
Location: Da Big Apple
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I have for many years been an adherent of Avant Browser. To the extent
that I paid the author $20 in gratitude for this superb freeware. It replaces
Windows Internet Explorer with exceptionally enhanced features which are
continuosly refined in updated versions all customizable by the user such
as multiple simultaneous browser windows ( before there was a firefox ) .
Unlike some evil applications this completely removes itself on demand as
readily as it installs. Something I occasionally use and may meet your needs
is the screen zoom text format feature which does the same thing as
changing the screen resolution but only applies to internet pages and is
easily done from a tool bar drop list in two clicks.
Compare this screen capture attached below to the one I provided above.
Note that in this one a scroll bar is evident on the bottom.
As before, you will have to rotate the *.pdf image counterclockwise to the
left to view correctly in the Adobe Acrobat viewer.
Also for some reason you have to download the file by right clicking it and
selecting the "save target as" option, it will not open directly, at least for me.
http://www.avantbrowser.com
the wiki's- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant_Browser
http://wiki.avantbrowser.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
Enter " Avant Browser " with quotation marks into Google to read the raves
The usual sources _
http://www.download.com/Avant-Browser/3000-2356_4-10645875.h...
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Browsers/Avant-Browser...
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Avant_Browser_d2346.html
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/ieopera.html
http://www.tucows.com/preview/284165
All past iterations available here, I still use V.37
http://www.filehippo.com/download_avant_browser
Attachment: AvantBrowserView.pdf (239kB)
This file has been downloaded 1499 times
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Rosco Bodine
Banned
Posts: 6370
Registered: 29-9-2004
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Mood: analytical
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I think the problem is more than just the browser .
A WC3 compliant web page does fare better than the
others , and probably causes fewer browser crashes as
well as rendering more legible pages .
I have a search and destroy program which will actually
do a non-MS approved complete removal of IE to allow
for a clean reinstall or replacement . I think they call it IEradicator .
A couple of warning dialogs appeared while I was resizing things , saying that some of my programs would not display properly with the contemplated
resolution
and other changes , giving me a dialogue confirmation to abort or proceed , a
sure sign that the machine doesn't like what is being done and will only change if dragged kicking and screaming . Anyway I chuckled
when I saw the go/no-go dialogue warning , and thought
what programs exactly was it that might not display properly ....maybe programs like Winblows and Internet Explorer to name the first two of all the
programs on the machine , none of which would later display properly ?
Sometimes those dialogue warnings have a gift for understatement ! And on the other hand sometimes they are total BS like an unsigned driver warning
when there is only one driver ever written for that particular hardware ....so then what else , but ignore the warning and proceed .
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Matchheads
Harmless
Posts: 21
Registered: 19-4-2007
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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It's 'reknowned', as in "Les Brown and his Band of Reknown".
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Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
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Sorry, renown is correct. No such word as 'reknown' exists in the English language. If you think otherwise consult the OED (Oxford English
Dictionary).
It's how the OED spells it that matters and how how a deceased band leader spelled it that matters, if indeed Les Brown spelled it incorrectly in the
first place.
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len1
National Hazard
Posts: 595
Registered: 1-3-2007
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Mood: NZ 1 (goal) - Italy 1 (dive)
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ftp://sciencemadness.org not responding. Is it down?
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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The FTP site is still working. It cannot be used without a login, though. You need to use the scipics@sciencemadness.org login name and password
scipics.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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peach
Bon Vivant
Posts: 1428
Registered: 14-11-2008
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I use imageshack for convenience, as it'll autoresize to forum format. But now I'm writing up photo essay style posts, I am bothered about how long
they'll host them for, and will start using the sites own host.
I've used gimp to resize. I'm not sure, but I think it can do batch processing. If not, there's likely a plugin that'll do it. And it's free.
If it's too dark, washed out or the colour balance isn't right, Gimp is handy to clean up a photo quickly. One option I particularly like is to go to
'levels' under (I think) colours on the toolbar, squeeze the side bars in to the edges of the spectrum in the photo, then slide the mid bar around to
get it how I want it. Makes a piece of shit look remarkably edible.
For example, I took this fairly standard image of Sarah Jessica Parker
And exposed to the gimp mechanism to get this
[Edited on 11-7-2010 by peach]
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Rogeryermaw
National Hazard
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wow! i didn't think even god could make sarah jessica parker look better than a puddle of vomit that has been shat upon. good work peach!
wait that's not fair. that's harsh to both vomit and feces.
[Edited on 4-10-2010 by Rogeryermaw]
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