Photo Enlargement Capabilities

[Midway Tommy D]

Anybody know what ever happened to the photo enlargement process. Used to be that a person could switch a thumbnail to a regular size photo and then enlarge it, and also enlarge regular size photos even more. It seems that ever since the site update that function no longer exists on many of the photos. Are some of the photos getting compressed so much that they can't be enlarged for better detail? If so, that is a shame.

[wrong99]

I've noticed the same thing. For quite a while.
Mark

[kyreels]

The old image library was buggy. We simply changed to more standard functionality and libraries. The capability to enlarge images to any size is still there. The user interface is just to use your mouse to click into the image, and it will enlarge it. You can also use a trackpad if you have a laptop, and use the two finger squeeze. I can get almost infinite enlargements, way bigger than my screen. I test everything on both MacOS and Windows 10. We test on Chrome, Edge and Safari. It is kind of difficult to understand what you are actually experiencing, since it seems so straightforward to me.

[Brian F.]

I'm able to enlarge full and thumbnail photos on my phone by using two fingers and expanding the image. It will retract when I "let go".

[Paul M]

Some images were uploaded in low resolution to begin with and they will not enlarge substantially unless stretched on the screen. The recently expanded upload size will make higher resolution images that much nicer to explore.

[Midway Tommy D]

The capability to enlarge mages to any size is still there. The user interface is just to use your mouse to click into the image, and it will enlarge it. You can also use a trackpad if you have a laptop, and use the two finger squeeze. I can get almost infinite enlargements, way bigger than my screen. I test everything on both MacOS and Windows 10. We test on Chrome, Edge and Safari. It is kind of difficult to understand what you are actually experiencing, since it seems so straightforward to me.

Lord knows I'm computer challenged. I use a PC & mouse, only. If I click on a posted thumbnail it enlarges to a regular size photo. When I click on that enlargement, many times it only enlarges about 10%, or even less. If I click on a posted regular size photo I get one enlargement, which, again, many times is only about a 10%, or less, increase. In the top right corner I have a zoom icon, slideshow icon and full screen icon. The zoom only upsizes the photo a little bit and the others do nothing for enlargement. Maybe you're going to have to do what my dad used to ask if he needed to to do when I was a kid, draw me a picture.

The creel pic thumbnails are a great example. Click on either one and they enlarge to regular size. Click on those regular size photos and they only get a tiny bit bigger. If I go to full screen I can move the photo anywhere I want on my screen but I find no way to zoom in closer or make it bigger, unless, I actually go to my browser zoom and adjust the size that way. Is that what you mean by "almost infinite enlargements"?

[Paul Roberts]

I've also taken to screenshooting and enlarging enhancing images. Does not offer greater resolution but can help.

[Paul M]

Here is a thumbnail and the full size image. If you click and then enlarge with the (magnifying glass) icon you will see the viewer features allow for pretty decent image expansion. I have also added specs about the picture in a low resolution screen grab PNG file. I think the issue is more about the quality and size of original image file. Low resolution files won't expand. They can only be stretched into what ultimately becomes a fuzzy mess.

This image was taken a few weeks ago with a decent Nikon D80 DSLR camera. The camera body is about 5 years old. The lens is about 12 years old. The original JPG file size was 2.90 MB so I was able to upload it to ReelTalk. (The native Nikon NEF RAW format files are much larger than the JPG file size that I chose to save but I didn't need that level of flexibility for the original purpose of the picture).

[Paul Roberts]

Wow. Thanks, Paul M. I hadn't seen that feature.

[Midway Tommy D]

I use a 15 year old Cannon PowerShot A530 set @ max 2592 x 1944 and have no issues with it, posting photos or enlarging any of them when uploaded, as is evidenced below. Both were originally cropped a little to get rid of irrelevant background to about 2450 x 1800 or so (450KB +-).

Thumbnail:


Regular:


Paul's pics enlarge just fine, as do a lot of others, but many are just like the creel example I mentioned.

[Steve]

Here's what's happening:
You can save both the thumbnail images and the full-size images to your computer. Both are the same size, pixel-wise.
The first creel photo is 640 x 480 pixels (at 72 pixels/inch). Paul's Peetz photo is 3872 x 2592 pixels (at 300 pixels/inch).
The typical PC monitor these days is 1920 pixels wide, but laptops, tablets, phones may have smaller screens.
When you blow up the creel pic, it will max out at 640/1920 pixels and will be only about 1/3 of your screen wide. Blow up the Peetz pic, and its 3872 pixels would take up 2 screen widths. An image-editing program can "enlarge" the pics, but that "digital enlargement" results in adding pixels to the image, and resolution suffers.

[kyreels]

Good info and examples. I am able to blow up the Peetz and the Abu on my systems to extreme detail and size. The "P" in Peetz is easily over 4 inches tall on my 13 inch laptop. The creel example was very low res, and much smaller of course. In any case, the new php image controls are very effective and secure and just as good or better than the previous components used on this site, at least in my opinion.

What I really, really want is an autosizer component (automatically limit the uploaded size no matter what the input). I put out the word previously, and we couldn't get it done. We are going to do an update to this board very soon (new version with some important fixes and updates). I may try to squeeze in some improvement to the image uploader. I just need to see what is possible and work with some talented people.

[Steve]

automatically limit the uploaded size

That might be a convenience for folks who haven't learned yet how to shrink their photos to 3MB, but please don't set a limit less than that. It would help if people would read the instructions for their cameras and phones. Shrinking photos ain't rocket science.

[Midway Tommy D]

automatically limit the uploaded size

That might be a convenience for folks who haven't learned yet how to shrink their photos to 3MB, but please don't set a limit less than that. It would help if people would read the instructions for their cameras and phones. Shrinking photos ain't rocket science.

Even this computer challenged dude learned a long time ago how to reduce size or compress photos on my PC. If I can do it just about anybody should be able to figure out the process.

[kyreels]

Yes, I would only limit the auto sizing to the 3 MB, not less. There are essentially two issues reported with uploading images. First, "The upload fails" and even though it tells you the image is too large, people don't know how to fix it. Second, "I tried to upload images and don't know why they don't appear". The user is unaware that the image links must be inserted into the post in this case. In both scenarios, it is possible to do some helper fixes, but they are a bit tricky and may not necessarily be foolproof. I thought about a button that says, The upload has completed, do you want to insert all images into the post?

Why do people not have issues with posting images in Twitter or Snapchat or Facebook? Because they don't use html tags and automatically resize and insert the images without any additional work. That is what we need to do ultimately. We need to accommodate the "Rocket Surgeons".