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Photo thumbnail distorts original
 
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David Andrew



Joined: 20 Jan 2005
Posts: 18
Location: Leeds, UK

PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:32 am    Post subject: Photo thumbnail distorts original Reply with quote

Please look at photos under "davidandrew.blogharbor.com" and specifically u1from3.

The full sized image is just fine but the thumbnail is distorted. Can that be corrected?

To do a "while I'm at it", is there a way of getting the second thumbnail into a new line, ie so self-portrait is by itself at the top?
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:25 pm    Post subject: Re: Photo thumbnail distorts original Reply with quote

The thumbnail features tries to take the center portion of an image and create a thumbnail based on that. There is no way to modify a specific thumbnail, but some sizes will look more accurate than others. Try re-uploading your image and choosing a 120 pixel Thumbnail size, I think it will look more accurate for this photo.

This page in the manual:

http://demo.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2004/6/15/87843.html

will show you know how to choose the number of columns and rows of thumbnails you wish to display on your photo album indexes.
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David Andrew



Joined: 20 Jan 2005
Posts: 18
Location: Leeds, UK

PostPosted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 2:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you.

Two points, one of clarity and one a request.

Clarity

Can you confirm that I can only change how a thumbnail looks through uploading the image a second time, eg through using replace on the edit page?

Request:

What is the purpose of a thumbnail? Broadly, it could be a

1. hint or reminder of the image, acting as an index

2. reduced version of the image, acting as a sample.

The thumbnails implemented here are like 1., can you consider the option to offer 2?

The second would be important to someone marketing a product or image. [In case this matters, not necessarily for cash.]
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 1:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, I can confirm that you can only change the thumbnail by replacing the image. Thumbnails are created at the time the image is uploaded, and it is created at the size you specify at that time. Presently it is not possible to have the system regenerate a thumbnail for you at a different size without re-uploading the original image.

Your first definition of thumbnail - a hint or reminder of the image - is most accurate in the context of our photo album system. Our system functions in this manner so that you can upload files of any height or width and specify the size of the thumbnail, and have thumbnails of a uniform size.

If you want more control over thumbnails then you should consider uploading your images to the File Manager directly, and creating your own thumbnails to link to these images. These pages from the manual discuss adding files to the File Manager:

http://demo.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2004/8/14/123896.html
http://demo.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2004/8/14/123895.html

Some blogging clients such as Ecto for Mac and Blogjet for Windows allow finer control over the formatting of your articles, and can make it easy for you to create thumbnails linking to your images. Many folks prefer using such editors to post to their blogs.

We have some information on configuring Ecto for our service here and some instructions on configuring Blogjet for our service here.


Last edited by john on Fri Feb 10, 2006 7:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Correction, I was wrong about this: you can indeed have the system regenerate a thumbnail for you at a different size. The option is right there in your control panel at the top of the category listing of your album... Look for the text Resize thumbnails to with a drop down menu listing sizes followed by a button labeled Resize...
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:55 am    Post subject: Thumbnail creation... suggestion for improvement Reply with quote

I do a lot of work with thumbnails outside of blogharbor, and I'll be honest: I don't like the way blogharbor makes them.

The basic problem in making thumbnails is that they need to be a uniform size, but the images you are thumbnailing are all different sizes. If a thumbnail is 120x120 and image one is 240x240 and image 2 is 360x360, you have to reduce both images by different amounts to get them to fit into the thumbnail properly (image 1 by 50% and image 2 by 66.7%).

That isn't so bad. The real problem is one of proportions. No matter what shape you choose for your thumbnails, it is very unlikely all of the images will be proportionally shaped. For example 120x120 is a SQUARE shape... the ratio of its width to its height is 1:1. Most pictures are not square. Typically the ones I upload are about 600x450... this has a width to height ratio of 4:3 or 1:0.75.

There are a number of ways to deal with this problem, here are the most common:

1. resize the image to 120x120 anyway, which would change the proportions and make the image look distorted (things in the thumbnail would either look too wide or too tall). This gets the whole image into the thumbnail at the cost of distortion.

2. take whichever dimension of the image is the longer one, and reduce until that matches the corresponding dimension of the thumbnail. This will either result in a thumbnail the right width but the wrong height, or the right height but the wrong width. Correct the height or width by centering the thumbnail image and "fill in" with pixels of a chosen color to make the thumbnail be the correct size. This gets the whole image into the thumbnail with no distortion, but every thumbnail will likely include bands of the chosen color for sizing.

3. take whichever dimension of the image is the shorter one, and reduce until that matches the corresponding dimension of the thumbnail. Center the image and lop off anything that doesn't fit inside the thumbnail. This gets a thumbnail with no distortion, and no color bands, but which also does not include a portion of the image, possibly a large portion.

It would be nice to be able to choose one of these methods, but blogharbor doesn't offer that functionality, and further, the blogharbor behavior is #3, the only one which excludes a portion of the image from the thumbnail. I would MUCH rather have #2. All the tools I've ever used for making thumbnails use that method. If that's a big deal, then I would love to have the option of uploading my own thumbnails and having the photo album use them instead. In about 5 seconds I can have IrfanView create a thumbnail for every image I want to upload, all consistently named, properly sized, and with much more control over the thumbnail appearance.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on thumbnails in blogharbor photoalbums.

-- Chuck
_________________
-- Abacquer, A.K.A. Chuck Seggelin
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Fri Feb 04, 2005 1:35 am    Post subject: Re: Thumbnail creation... suggestion for improvement Reply with quote

Chuck - Thanks for your detailed feedback, it's very much appreciated.

Your points are well taken, given those 3 options you end up with drawbacks no matter which method you choose; distortion, bands of fill color or transparency, or some missing image area. Perhaps in the future we'll be able to offer options about the way thumbnails are handled.

We'll definitely make a note of your points, thanks again for taking the time to let us know your thoughts on this.
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artatcomo



Joined: 10 Jun 2004
Posts: 18
Location: Saint Paul, MN

PostPosted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 8:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree wih Chuck. The thumbnails autogenerated are not satisfactory. If I have a portrait, the head is chopped off. When I have a group shot the people on the two sides are missing. This makes me look incompetent.
http://art.blogx.com/






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