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Photographs And Avatars


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Every time I have tried putting a photograph up I have received the message that it is too big, and no matter how much I have cropped and fiddled with the thing I do not seem to be able to get it to the requisite size to enter anything up.

Just remember that "too big" doesn't mean "too many inches." You don't need to crop, you need to reduce the file size in one or both of these ways:

 

  • Decrease the resolution: For an image intended to appear on a computer screen and that likely will neither be blown up or printed, you don't need 300 dpi. 72 dpi is probably fine.
  • Decrease the number of colors. Especially for a drawn avatar, you probably don't need "millions of colors." A photograph may not either. Experiment and see if minimizing the number of colors yields a tolerable image.

 

 

 

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Every time I have tried putting a photograph up I have received the message that it is too big, and no matter how much I have cropped and fiddled with the thing I do not seem to be able to get it to the requisite size to enter anything up.

Just remember that "too big" doesn't mean "too many inches." You don't need to crop, you need to reduce the file size in one or both of these ways:

 

  • Decrease the resolution: For an image intended to appear on a computer screen and that likely will neither be blown up or printed, you don't need 300 dpi. 72 dpi is probably fine.
  • Decrease the number of colors. Especially for a drawn avatar, you probably don't need "millions of colors." A photograph may not either. Experiment and see if minimizing the number of colors yields a tolerable image.

 

 

If, like me, anyone has trouble figuring out how to best go about decreasing the file size of an image without changing the size (or, at least not by too much) -- you might try a photo site like PBase. I think they still have a free membership up to a point, then there's a tiny cost if you upgrade. What you'd want to do is upload your photo to the site, then on the editing page find the menu for selecting the option to recompress the photo. Then, VIEW the photo, and below it there will be 4 options - small, med, large, or original. 'Large' is actually usually the best choice as long as you did recompress the photo.

 

Once the view is the 'Large' one, right-click and 'save image as' -- etc. THAT image will probably work out for an avatar (it will be resized again automatically). If not, try grabbing the medium or small, maybe.

 

I'm not saying there's no better way to do things, but it's worked for me.

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Hi there,

 

I have never managed to setup a photo before,

 

I have now read this thread and done it !!

 

I am on a mac, reduced the file size in iPhoto, vey simple !

 

and here we are, a little piccy of my pride and joy !!

 

Karl

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Any Windows PC user could just load the pic in "paint" and then resize it. This is anyways be done by reducing the amount of pixels and thus the memory consumption (which is crucial for succeeding with loading an avatar pic). However, you could of course use GIMP as well...

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The size of the avatar pictures displayed next to comments is 100x100 pixels, so crop it to square then scale it down to that size, save it as a JPEG, and there's a good chance it will work. If the file size is still too big, try reducing the JPEG compression quality to 75% or lower when you save it.

Edited by alex_holden
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  • 2 weeks later...

Try this - copy this picture to your hard-drive and then try replacing your avatar. (Go to top of page, drop down list from your name, select profile - change avatar)

av-6811.jpg

 

Edit - just realised we have bigger avatars - this one is the 2010 size

Edited by wes williams
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