Image loading speeds

grebeman

Old Codgers Group
I've noticed recently that some images in posts are taking three or four minutes to load, whilst others load in seconds. Whilst the pixel dimensions of the image appear to satisfy the requirements of the forum rules I'm unable to ascertain what the total file size is. Are there instances of members posting files at resolutions greater than 72 ppi or 96 ppi. Files of 200-250 kB at resolutions of 72 ppi are perfectly adequate to be seen as jpegs over the internet. Not all of us are on fibre optic cables or super fast broadband. It would be sad to think that some of us might give up posting images or looking at troublesome threads because of this issue.

Barrie
 
Members host their images at a variety of places - in the gallery here, on FLickr, Ipernity, Smugmug, 500px and so on.
Have you been able to ascertain whether there is any commonality as to where they are hosted, among those images that load slowly ?
 
Could just ask the posters

What is annoying & troublsome for me is the horizontal stretch - I'm using a 22" widescreen monitor & the right side of the image is next door into my neighbour's property
not sure what file method is causing it
 
If I understood correctly a recent front page article talked about an automatic resizing of large pixel dimension images. I'm using a 1600 x 1200 display and the images that have caused me concern recently are the same size on my monitor as an image I know to have been originally posted at 1024 px wide. However could it be that these images have been posted at a much wider setting and the resizing process, however and wherever carried out, is taking an inordinate time.

Barrie
 
Just posted a photo from Flickr at this size: 1024 × 768 which I don't always do because they often seem too big... Mine went up in a normal very fast time. However, perhaps my sized file is not as large as others since it's not a full sized camera. I'm too non technical to tell you much more.
 
BB, you have posted your photograph in much the same way as I would do, sized at 1024 px wide. Your image has a total file size of about 777 kB and has loaded quickly. I have been posting images with file sizes of about 250 kB and don't think that there is any significant difference in the quality as seen over the web.

I use the "save for web" facility in Photoshop which automatically reduces the image to 72 ppi and then gives an option to resize the image to the 1024 px width and adjust the image quality which will alter the file size to my usual 250 kB or there abouts. These files are often from camera images of 40-50 MB and this resizing process can be done manually if the photo editor being used doesn't contain an equivalent to the Photoshop "save for web" facility.

The images posing problems that I have recently seen didn't seem to contain the file size of the image in properties when I examined them, unlike the image from BB posted above.

Is the problem due to the fact that a number of people do not understand that image quality on the web is limited and are posting large files in the belief that their image will benefit from that larger size, the truth is it will not, all that will happen is that download times are increased. On super fast fibre optic broadband this increased time is likely to be insignificant, if a small image downloads in say 2 seconds, then a download time of say 10 times that will still only be 20 seconds, however for those of use using old fashioned copper connections a download time of that same small image might be say 20 seconds, 10 times that becomes 200 seconds, in other words over 3 minutes, then you begin to notice how significant that is.

The size of file initially produced by the camera has no impact on this issue, unless the person concerned doesn't understand the necessity to resize that file to take account of the limitations of the internet, particularly for those of us who either don't have access to super fast connections, or are unwilling to pay the cost of such connections.

Barrie
 
Since Amin enabled us to designate the max image size that would show up for us (which we can set based on our display), I've been linking to files with a long end of 1600 pixels rather than the 1024 I'd been using before. Based on his assurance that if you've set your preferences for a max size of 1024 (or smaller), any larger images would automatically resize. I wonder if a) these aren't downsizing on all displays, b) are downsizing but still causing the long horizontal text scrolling that used to happen, or c) are taking an unusually long time to load and/or resize for the forum? Here are two 1600 wide images as a test. From Flickr. If these are causing problems for folks, I'll be happy to go back to using the 1024 images. On my large display I prefer to see larger images, but if it's monkeying up the works for others, I'm happy to go back to the smaller images...

Let me know if these cause problems...

-Ray

14198132206_1dae28bf06_h.jpg

Parking Garage-8-Edit
by ramboorider1, on Flickr

14173664095_197859578f_h.jpg

NYC Monday-41-Edit
by ramboorider1, on Flickr
 
Ray, the images you posted above are showing up on my 1600 x 1200 display as 1024 x 683 and aligned with the left hand side of the screen. The file size is shown as 1193 KB and the download time is perfectly acceptable.

Barrie

That's interesting - do you have your max image size set to 1024? Or maybe that's just still the default if you don't designate anything larger... In any case, they're 1600 from Flickr and that's how they're showing up on my 27" screen, but I changed the size preference on the forum to allow that. But if it's not causing any undue problems, I'll keep using 1600.

-Ray
 
At the very bottom left of every page is a "Style" chooser drop down menu. That "should" help with the sidescrolling issue (I think......though I'm not very tech-minded the older I get) if one makes the right selection based on the resolution settings of one's monitor.

That won't change the issue of large file sizes and long load times, however.
 
That's interesting - do you have your max image size set to 1024? Or maybe that's just still the default if you don't designate anything larger... In any case, they're 1600 from Flickr and that's how they're showing up on my 27" screen, but I changed the size preference on the forum to allow that. But if it's not causing any undue problems, I'll keep using 1600.

-Ray

Ray, I've not knowingly set anything, so I assume they are resizing to 1024 by default. The images that have been giving me trouble also show 1024, once downloaded.

Barrie
 
I switched to hi-res setting and needed to sidescroll to see Ray's full images...at default, everything is fine. Others may need to use the setting for smaller displays (or check resolution settings of their screen)
 
And I was just browsing some of my favorite threads and ran across the egregiously slow loader in the Sigma DP thread here Sigma - Sigma DP Series Image Thread. I have a DSL connection (not a speed demon or anything, but not a super slow one either).....it took a full minute to display two images (when usually a photo heavy thread entire page will load in 5-10 seconds)...

So what is the solution to this? I'm not familiar with photobucket, but do they not offer a way to share a smaller file size?
 
I've not seen the problem on my Desktop running 1920x1200 or Ipad and a 1600 image from Flickr looks fine to me.
Everything comes down quickly so I've seen no speed issues either.
Sorry not much help really.
Even the slowest image in the Sigma thread is 18mbs and was down inside 5 seconds.
 
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