Screenshot comp discussion: image formats etc

[NZ255]

[color=#FF0000][size=150]Can I ask participants to please take note of rule 3: The images must be jpg so please don’t post png

Hi Doug,
Can I ask why there is a rule not allowing pngs? A png is very common and most importantly is lossless so no information is lost due to compression, unlike jpg. Not looking to make a fuss, just interested.

Nick

[Adamski]

Can I ask participants to please take note of rule 3: The images must be jpg so please don’t post png

Can I ask why there is a rule not allowing pngs? A png is very common and most importantly is lossless so no information is lost due to compression, unlike jpg. Not looking to make a fuss, just interested.

I'm keen to know this also. PNG files can be pretty large (compared to JPG), but they'd all be hosted/linked to on other people's servers, so shouldn't really impact any HD hosting space allocation for NZFF.

I've had to cough up a small fortune to use Photoshop for work - so that means I can produce a pretty high quality (lossy) JPG anyway, but not everyone may have that option.

Adam.

[dbcunnz]

Can I ask participants to please take note of rule 3: The images must be jpg so please don’t post png

Can I ask why there is a rule not allowing pngs? A png is very common and most importantly is lossless so no information is lost due to compression, unlike jpg. Not looking to make a fuss, just interested.

I'm keen to know this also. PNG files can be pretty large (compared to JPG), but they'd all be hosted/linked to on other people's servers, so shouldn't really impact any HD hosting space allocation for NZFF.

I've had to cough up a small fortune to use Photoshop for work - so that means I can produce a pretty high quality (lossy) JPG anyway, but not everyone may have that option.

Adam.

The reason I ask for JPG only is that I have to save all the comp images to my PC and resize them all to the voting post thumbnails.
I also have to placing them in order for the voting post and I find it far easier and saves quite a bit of time just working with one format.

The majority post in JPG so that is why I ask for all JPG, but if they all wanted to change to PNG then I could change it to all PNG but it would have to one or the other.

So that is the reason I ask for JPG only.

[Adamski]

Aaah ... right ... fair enough, Doug. I'd forgotten that such a lot of it is a manual/laborious process. OK ... now back to the jungle ...where's my machete?

Adam.

[Ian Warren]

I've had to cough up a small fortune to use Photoshop for work - so that means I can produce a pretty high quality (lossy) JPG anyway, but not everyone may have that option.

That is the thing, seems everyone has Photoshop , Me .. It cost a small fortune but well worth it , there is also the cheaper option in buying Corel Draw , but generally JPG format practically is the standard !

[toprob]

I've split this off from the screenshot comp, with Nicks ok, as it really deserves some further discussion.
I must admit as a former graphic designer and photographer, I don't really give much thought to how people deal with file formats/editing etc. But thinking about, it ain't really that easy if you don't already have some suitable tools and a prior reason to learn how to use them. So I've been thinking....
There are plenty of ways to go from pressing the 'v' key to getting your screenshot posted in the comp. I'll cover a few, maybe others can chime in with some others.

Here we are assuming that not everybody has a specific image processing tool, such as Photoshop.

For me, the easiest way by far has to be using Postimage.org. I don't mean using it because of it's forum integration -- the bit where you press the 'add image to post' link above the post edit window. This to me is flawed and not really suitable for the comp, as it inserts thumbnails which link to the screenshot surrounding by mainly inappropriate advertising. You can get around this, but really it makes more sense to bypass this 'feature' and use Postimage itself.

One good thing about Postimage is that you can upload a BMP, which is the file type you get when you press 'v' and save it as a JPG. You can also resize it during the upload process. So you can do all the necessary steps -- resize and save as JPG -- automatically in one step.

There are other image hosting sites, although many of these have gone through some limiting changes these days. For simmers, there's FSfiles.org (OZx image hosting) but I don't think this will resize your screenshot. Postimage has a number of extra features which I find invaluable, such as the desktop integration -- which includes a screenshot tool, which grabs the prtscn button, and lets you choose what to do with it, and how much to do it to. So you can grab a part of a screen, copy it to the clipboard, or save it, or upload it to Postimage, complete with annotations/markups. I've mentioned this before, I'll track down my post.

If you use Windows 10, you have access to some nice free tools from the Windows Store. One is Photoshop Express, which is a free image editing tool. This is super-simple to install, as the Store does all the work. You'd still need to learn how to use it, but it is pretty simple compared to a full-fledged image editor. Which you can also get for free, by the way, there's GIMP, which I've mentioned in the recent photoscenery tutorial video. This is very powerful, but of course trickier to learn.

By the way, I've done some testing of image quality, comparing the Photoshop files to what Postimage conversion/resizing does, and really the difference is minimal. On the other hand, I am 60 years old and my eyesight is crap...

EDIT: I forgot to mention that with Prepar3d v3 you can change the default file format for the 'v' key. I save mine as JPG to save space. I think there are other choices, I'll do some checking.

[Adamski]

Rob - thanks for hiving this off. As regards P3D screenshots:

The default "V" key in P3D can save in BMP, TIFF, PNG and JPG - of which only JPG is "lossy" (and you can't control the *degree* of compression).

*However* there is a caveat: I think the "V" key saves the RAW image, as generated by P3D - without any post-processing effects - so if you use ReShade (or any other type of GFX injector utility), you may need to use either the Windows "Printscreen" key or some other screen-grabbing utility. I use PTA, which creates all its effects in pre-processing (via core shaders edits) so all my tweaks are captured by the "V" key.

I prefer to have total control over my shots (and have a decent tool to do it with) - so I can crop, correct, resize and resave with a decent compression ratio before I upload to an image host. As I don't need "on the fly" resizing, I find FSFiles (OzX) superb. I've also used Postimage and found them really very good too. The one to avoid is Photobucket, IMHO.

Adam.

[Ian Warren]

The one to avoid is Photobucket, IMHO.

Ole Photo Mucket really did not do themselves any favours, I only return there for the historical screens or photo's , follow on with that the default 'Snipping Tool ' is handy to grab a quick screen, many don't even know it is there as a default.