Web Space

Uploading images to websites is a great thing to be able to do and we all love looking at the pics but what people need to understand is that each image or file takes up both hard disk space on a server which is our allotted web space and also that each image or file slows down web page loading times. If the site reaches its allowed web space allowance (fills the servers hard drive up) or uses up the allocated bandwidth allowance then we get charged for more space (larger hard drive) or £ per MB of bandwidth used up as peopl upload their huge pics which basically eats up internet traffic & causes other hosted web-sites to load slowly etc.

Bandwidth is the term for the traffic that travels down the cables to and from web-sites to our computers and each web host allocates a web-site a maximum bandwidth allowance. If the site uses more than its allowance, the host can and will charge extra per MegaByte of usage. Much like a bank with overdraft fees.

Files and Sizes

There are two kinds of sizes when it comes to digital images. There's file size and there's physical size. File size is the computerized (digital) size of the stored information that makes the image up. Physical size is the actual viewable picture size which is shown on computer by way of how many pixels the image was told to become by the camera. A pixel is a tiny digital dot made up of 3 colours, red , green and blue and when they're all squashed together they use an allocated amount of each colour in each pixel to make up the image.

Size Matters

If you take your 8 megapixel camera out on the yak, snap a few scenic views etc. then download them to your PC or laptop you can view them and they look great. What you don't realise is that the actual file size of that image is probably 1.5mb (megabytes) or more which is massive when it comes to web sites and file space etc. When I was learning about all this myself way back in 2002. I was taught to compress any pictures to under 40K (Kilobytes - 1000 kb is equal to 1mb). You'd be surprised as to how small you can compress a pic without losing a lot of quality. For best results, I compress a pic and save it with a given name but ALWAYS keep the original so if anything goes wrong I can revert back to it or print it off but most importantly put it on disk as a hard copy.
I use Adobe Photoshop CS2 to edit and compress my pics ready for uploading which I'll ramble on about next after I explain about image sizes. :wink:

When you set a camera up to take pics it gives you the option of how many pixels you want to take the pic in yeah? This is crucial when it comes to uploading the pics. When you take a pic that you know your going to upload to a web-site, move the image size/quality down to 2m pixels for best results as this way the file probably won't need compressing or editing and you can upload it straight into a forum like this :)

Cameras are clever tools and they know automatically that when you choose a setting the picture you take will be created at a certain physical size, ie;
8m pixels = 1600x1200 pixels
4m pixels = 1200x1000 pixels
2m pixels = 800x600 pixels

The above is just a rough idea so don't quote me on it ok but why I'm explaining this is 'cos all web pages are based on height and width. Pages were originally made to be 1000 pixels wide which means that if you upload an image that is larger than this, the web page the pic is on will automatically create a scroll bar (GRRR I hate scroll bars) and it knocks the page/site all to hell.
This why I feel its best to keep the file size down for web pics as it also keeps the web pages intact too for better viewing/reading. :roll:

This is why I've created all this information for you, so it doesn't harm the site and you get the best out of it. Our forums are set with a maximum file upload size of 1mb which means that your pic will upload to the site but I'll need to download it then edit it as & when I can then re-upload it so the site works okay.

I hope that explains a little more as to why some of you have trouble uploading pics to sites & forums? If you still can't manage it then post & ask for help. I really don't mind at all :)