Curious about the F-Chat image sharing format...

You just opened a can of worms. No, a keg of worms.

"640x480 is for bandwidth use."
However, if people used imageshack, for example ... wouldn't it leave the F-Chat bandwidth alone?

Forbidden image linking is because "FChat should be like an archive of the pictures posted so that they don't turn as red X after a couple months".
Problem is ... when the FChat server crashes, many of those pics are lost. And archive or not, I've never saved a picture as small as 640x480.

Also, FChat apparently doesn't care for pics, and wants to be more focused on the cars and the community ... blah blah blah. It makes sense up to a point ...



I'm with you, though. Those teaser pics are annoying as hell, but it's a policy no one wants to change, apparently.

 

How do I remove pics I have uploaded?

 

You only have one hour and then you can't.

 

Keg of worms indeed.

The ability to post thumbnails that would expand to a larger image would be a good compromise, IMHO. One of things that I like about the current setup is that the board never loses it's 'shape'; I can scroll down and speed-read without having to stop and scroll horizontally.

As for newbies posting huge pics.. have you seen some of our new users? Do you know how many there are? Every thread would be a complete mess in no time flat!

Another issue is image ownership- do we want pictures of rare automobiles, private garages, events, and people going out to the world in 1600x1200 format? You saw the "NOTOUCHMYENZO" thread where even a little bit of information got skewed into an attempt to prove ownership. Now take away the collective knowledge of this board, put the pics on another, multiply it by infinity, take it to the depth of forever, and you will still have barely a glimpse of what I'm talking about.

 

Not to split hairs, but the actual size allowed here is 640x640, not 640x480.

I think there's also a common misconception that larger images are more clear. I'm not entirely up to speed on the technical aspects of it, but I know that a 1600X1200 picture is not necessarily any clearer or contains a better look at the subject. If people would use a good graphics program like Adobe Photoshop to resize their pics, and optimize them for web viewing, the quality of the image will not suffer unduly when downsizing. I think 640x640 is a fair middle ground.

Also, if someone really wants to share hi-res photos, do it like TexasMike does and upload the pics to an online album, and share the album, and if you want, post a couple of teaser pics resized to the forum limits.

 

People who pay should be able to view and post each others high res pics. I'd settle for that 'compromise' cause I agree with some of the others, resizing pics gets old quick. I also would like to link to other sites. I'd be willing(or someone else if they want) to setup a site that people could upload large pics to that could be a 'trusted' or 'official' site that people could use if Rob would allow them to link only from that site. I'd be up for anything really, I just want larger pics.

And for farmer dave:
Higher resolution pictures if taken correctly, are more clear than their lower res counter parts. Technically when you downsize a picture, you are removing some of the detail in that picture. That's why you can't just resize a picture to make it larger. It's hard to find 2 pictures that illustrate the idea im trying to convey but if you have access to HDtv, flip between the HD channel and its regular counterpart and it becomes night and day.

 

Just thinking about it some more, and the only reason I can think of for a larger image (aside from archiving it for your own uses) would be to use it as wallpaper, manipulate it or print it out. Given the nature of this board, do we really want to give everyone those abilities?

 

I understand that some information is lost when resizing occurs. I guess I am a different type of consumer of the pictures... I just look at em, and move on. My background picture has been the same for a year, until the other day. I contantly have browser windows and contact management programs open, I never see my desktop!

I'm not trying to win an argument against higher resolution. Just putting some perspective on things. Great for-instance: The crystal cove threads. If those pics were any larger, it would be a headache due to the sheer number of them. As it is, even with DSL, those threads take quite some time to load. And if I spent more than 30 seconds viewing each pic, I'd be there all day. In those cases, higher resolution pics would be processed by my brain in the same amount of time as the 640 pics. And the 640 pics that are posted there are usually first-rate resize and optimize jobs.

For 95% of the stuff posted here, 640 works just fine. For the other 5%, well, that's what Imageshack and Photobucket are for.

 

Clickable thumbnail for forums and I'll be happy.

 

You can only load a set amount till you can not load any more. Does this mean that now that I have reached my limit I can no longer ever post pics?

 

Dr.S, I noticed your other thread where you're having problems with your subscription. One you get that straightened out, you should be able to post unlimited pics, just like all subscribers.