question about photoshopped images/avatars

As a photoshop user, my images and artwork usually shows up well on webpages.
However, when I upload an avater to my picture gallery on ATS, it seems to lessen the quality.

for ex: texts aren't readable, outlines seems blurry and a lot of the sharpness is gone.

Is there a reason and/or a solution for this?

thanks


[edit on 11/10/2009 by GypsK]

dunno, but I see it's a jpg, png's are usually sharper, try that, or if you don't mind less colors even a gif is sharper, but I haven't noticed any lacking of quality after uploading, maybe they reduce it to a poor quality jpg.

reply to post by Razimus


is png allowed for avatars? i thought only jpg and gif?

My jpg's are 68K in size, and uploads are allowed upto 70K... so it shouldn't lower the quality

[edit on 11/10/2009 by GypsK]

reply to post by GypsK
For me it's working fine. Save in Level 10 JPEG and you'll have no problem. As you can see my avatar held all the details, small fonts and I can tell you it has the same details what is in the original file.

Oh, and maybe you should add an unsharp mask on 110 (Or less), 1, 10, right to your final composition before saving. That can do some miracle.

[edit on 11-10-2009 by Sharrow]

I noticed that when I upload an avatar, the colours are less vibrant than they were in the saved file. If I know I'll be uploading it to ATS, I go:

Image > Adjustments > Curves - and select increase contrast from the drop-down menu. It looks too saturated on disk, but after it's been uploaded to ATS it looks fine, colour wise anyway.

PNG is the way to go. JPG is an old format and is becoming less and less popular. I just opened up a .psd in Photoshop and saved it as a JPG, then did the same and saved it as a PNG via File > Save for Web & Devices...

JPG: 100KB
PNG: 80KB

That's the difference in image size between the two formats.

I don't know if any of this will be helpful to you but someone might find it useful.

[edit on 11/10/09 by dmorgan]

reply to post by dmorgan

That's the difference in image size between the two formats.

In an avatar maybe, but in other works the PNG is used to be 10 times larger, especially if it's holding the alpha.

Yes, png looks much nicer when uploaded to ats
but
you can't use png for avatars, only jpg and gif

reply to post by GypsK


Have you tried "optimizing" your image before uploading it.

If you use the correct amount of colours, dithering etc you can keep a better quality image.

I used "image ready" which is part of my Photoshop 6 but later versions come with better optimization functions and a GIF format.

Try a few different settings and choose the one that looks best.

Good luck.

Originally posted by nerbot
reply to post by GypsK

 

I used "image ready" which is part of my Photoshop 6 but later versions come with better optimization functions and a GIF format.
Good luck.

do you use photoshop elements 6?
Mine is elements... and I haven't tried "image ready". Probably because I have a dutch version and it is called different. (but so far i can't find it)

I'll google on it, but that has to be for tomorrow because right now I can't even see straight anymore after 10 h photoshopping... *bleh*

thanks for the tips

I tried to make my own avatar using gimp and this happened...so i didn't bother.Im no image specialist though so i don't know why this happened.I also made the pic jpg.Im guessing due to the constrictions of size and resolution something odd happens after you upload...maybe

reply to post by Solomons


If your talking about the avatar you have now, then I don't see anything wrong with it. It's a nice one if you ask me

Originally posted by GypsK
Yes, png looks much nicer when uploaded to ats
but
you can't use png for avatars, only jpg and gif

Why not use .png? I do. I asked about it before with no objections. This site itself uses .png for its own graphics and I consider that a go-ahead for any other image.

I took a look and the original guidelines were written in 2002. PNG seems to be quite fully supported by browsers now.

[edit on 10/12/2009 by EnlightenUp]

reply to post by EnlightenUp


ah, ok, thanks
hadn't figured that one out yet, lol

I read the guidelines and it said gif and jpg only... so I didn't bother to try a png