Avatar pixel limit.

[flo]

Originally Posted by Irish Pride

Right on, bro! I hope I live to see that day come also.

[NateR]

Well if I increased the avatar size limit, then I'd have to ban animated GIFs from people's avatars. Even at the 100x100 limit, some of the animated GIFs that people upload create a noticeable lag in the forums, especially if they post several times on one page.

The biggest problem is that people don't know how or simply don't have the software necessary to properly optimize JPGs and GIFs for web viewing. This makes the files 2-3 times larger than they need to be and creates difficulties with slower connections.

Although the 100x100 limit doesn't apply to everyone. Matt's avatar is something like 250x250; but he's a special case.

My previous avatar may have made pages load slower for some people. Would increasing the pixel limit increase the byte size limit?

[NateR]

Originally Posted by Rochambeau

My previous avatar may have made pages load slower for some people. Would increasing the pixel limit increase the byte size limit?

Well I set everything manually, so I get to choose the pixel limits and size limits. Right now the avatar byte size limit is 2000000 bytes, or roughly 2 MB. Which is massive, now that I think about it, even for an animated GIF.

This images is 226x150 pixels and it's only 1.6 MB:


This one is 125x125 pixels and only 281 KB:


So I think I need to drop that byte size limit down to about 300 KB or 300000 bytes.

For the non-animated JPG avatars, there is absolutely no reason that they need to be over 12 KB and even that is way more than necessary. A properly optimized 100x100 pixel JPG should be in the 6-7 KB range.

[NateR]

I set it to 125x125 pixels with a 300 KB size limit. We'll see how that works out.

Thanks, Nate. GIF images (non-animated) are smaller than JPEG images. So, people should try to go with the GIF format.

[NateR]

Originally Posted by Rochambeau

Thanks, Nate. GIF images (non-animated) are smaller than JPEG images. So, people should try to go with the GIF format.

The color palette for GIFs is too limited for my tastes. GIFs only use 8-bit color, for a total of 256 colors available. JPGs use 24-bit color, which gives you access to thousands of colors. So in terms of quality, especially when it comes to photographs, then you can't beat a JPG.

But it's mostly just personal preference.

I'd rather use JPEG and usually do use JPEG, really.