John, First thing I noticed about your large image of the middle picture is that it is relatively low quality, very grainy. Did you use a digital camera to take it, or did you scan a photograph?
I'm asking because it makes a difference in what the "first step" is -- which I've been struggling with for some time, myself -- to making a decent graphic for a website, or for a printout. If you used a digital camera, then you got stuck with JPG to begin with ... and if you didn't have the camera set for the finest quality, you've lost definition and workability to begin with. Photos of the vacation are fine in "regular quality," but something for specific illustration really needs to be the highest quality you can get to begin with. The same applies to scanning photos -- go for the highest quality you can obtain. Even if all you can get for the original graphic is JPG, the next step is to consider converting to a bitmap [BMP]. When I am working with images and want to maintain the best possible control, I always have my "master" in BMP form. Yes, I *know* they are huge, but that format is the only one where you don't lose a whole bunch when you covert it. And once you've gotten what you want, you can then change the target to JPG or GIF as the end step, depending upon which format gives you the level of quality you want for the size you want of the final file. If you don't have a whole bunch of drive space available, there is always the very workable, non-loss, ZBM approach; zipping up a BMP file can reduce its size by around 50% give or take a few percents. It is often possible to then store the "too big" BMP on a floppy as a ZBM. Of course if you have a CD burner that is even a better place to put your 'master' BMP files. l.d. P.S. I just realized what I was writing about, and I find it flabbergasting that this level of technology is now available to anyone who can afford a bundled computer system! Ms Josephine Blow now has better graphics & storage technology available, on that cheapo system she bought, than "Lights & Magic" had for the first version of E.T. !!! Technology is running so fast ... I hope we can find valid and valuable uses for it once in awhile. ==== On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 09:58:08 -0800 (PST), John Vertegaal wrote: > Ron Clarke wrote: >> A thought ! Would you like me to see if I can get your "large" >> graphic down to the size you want to display it at ? >> Just give me the URL and I will have a go. :) > Hi Ron, > I just reloaded my altered homepage and new.htm onto my server. New.htm > is basically a copy of Steve's suggestion. And the homepage has new > jpegs (minus the miscodings). The bottom two tumbnails are now somewhat > larger than before, but their img src is a lot smaller. My gripe is with > the middle picture. I've tried many different ways, but the reductions > and final display have all been rather poor. I think the original may > be lacking enough contrast. The url is http://www.coolbikesubuild.com > Thanks for your offer, > John V -- Arachne V1.70;rev.3, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
