Mystery Solved!

[Steven Love]

In a previous posting I talked about how some of my images were not being retained by the system after upload. For quite a while I could not figure out what the problem was. Even Terry did not know what the actual problem was.

After some experimentation I have finally solved the mystery.

Terry suggested in one email to me that the problem might be related to file size but he was not sure.
Using that suggestion as a starting point I then began looking for commonalities among the files that would not upload properly and how they were different from the files that did upload properly. One thing that was in common with all the files was that the ones that did not want to upload properly were over 8 megabytes in size.

I then reduced a few of the problem files in size gradually to see where the threshold was. After a few trials it turns out that 8 megabytes seems to be the threshold because the largest file I was able to upload with no problems was 7.83 megabytes.

So if any of you have similar problems check the file size.

If you do have a problem file that is over 8 megabytes don't simply compress it more because that will create JPEG artifacting which degrades quality. The best way to reduce the file size and preserve the quality is by reducing the image pixel dimensions. For example; if you have an image that is 3200 by 2400 pixels with a file size that is over 8 megabytes try reducing the pixel dimensions to 2800 by 2100 pixels with a 300 dpi. Then save it as a new JPEG with a level 12 quality setting.

This method will produce a smaller file size while preserving quality. The smaller pixel dimensions will mean that it will print smaller on paper but it will still be useful as a stock photo.

Any questions let me know.

Steve