Gislef wrote:
I cut-n-pasted the title that TVMaze has listed. If I'm reading the edit log correctly (first time) it looks like you changed it after I did so.I didn't want to mismatch the article title with the TVMaze title in any case. It looks like Shelley edited the title in the article as well.
Yeah, I know that. My note was addressed to Shelley, so she could edit this, not to blame you :)
tnt wrote:
Yeah, I know that. My note was addressed to Shelley, so she could edit this, not to blame you :)
I believe she did.
tnt wrote:
It seems that you not understood me correctly. I never suggested that you upscale the images, scaling them from 720 to 1000 pixels only make them much much worse. If you're not able to capture the images at higher resolution, the best possible course of actions would be to use your original (720 px) images without any additional processing. I don't know, if the TVmaze policy could be applied to articles, but considering episode images it states: Please upload images in the highest available resolution.
Highest available to who? I'm uploading them in the highest resolution available to me.
If you have a readily available free source for episodes so that I can pull the screencaps necessary for the articles, at the resolution you want, I'd be glad to use it. Network promo images rarely fit the bill content-wise. Some images available via Google are smaller than 720 px and the 500 px that seems to work best for articles.
Gislef wrote:
Highest available to who? I'm uploading them in the highest resolution available to me.
Judging from your words the highest available to you resolution is 720x404, but you're using downscaled 500px copies. Am I correct?
As for the sources, my personal favorites are http://www.farfarawaysite.com/section/listing.htm and http://fractured-simplicity.net/daydreaming/gallery/
They usually have the fresh images in a day or two before the broadcast. Examples are below:
http://www.farfarawaysite.com/section/blacklight/gallery2/gallery1/hires/3.jpg
http://fractured-simplicity.net/daydreaming/gallery/albums/-2018/OCT%203/flash/stills5/5x01_0014.jpg
The resolution available to me is whatever happens to be out there on video. Since I select the images from the video based on what I'm writing. The alternative would be to go with someone else's image choices and try to write around them. Or use generic images.
I resized them to 500px, that's correct, as 500px is the size that fits in the text editor while laying out the articles. As opposed to resizing it in the article editor, which is a somewhat iffy process. For instance, it sometimes causes weird line spacing issues, Sometimes the issues go away when you refresh the page, sometimes they don't. What Facebook does with it, I don't know.
If I understand what you're saying, with my current process it will maintain the image quality best if I don't resize it in the photo editing program (IRFanView in this case), and manually resize it within the text editor. I'll do that.
For the sites you list above and tonight airing of American Horror Story, farfaraway doesn't seem to have AHS. Looking at last night's Flash images, their selection is a bit limited and many of them would IMO be unsuitable to a review. Cecile holding a baby, Cisco leaning on Caitlin, Wally staring at the camera, Joe and Barry staring at a computer screen.
Compare that to Doctor Who, which has enough images and of a decent-enough variety that I could probably slot them into a review.
farfaraway also doesn't seem to have other shows like Iron Fist. Although it does have Jessica Jones. And Defenders, but it's under JJ. Weird.
Fractured Simplicity at least has AHS, but they seem to be generic non-episode images, none of which would be usable for a episode-specific article.
Unfortunately, the video I got for AHS tonight was of somewhat lower-than-average quality. As such, I only used two images, the first and third. I used one promo, and didn't rescale them outside of the text editor. Of the three images, the first is 732x422, the second is 693x374, and the third is 817x495. If there's a way to "lock" image in IRFanView at a set height/width without changing proportions, I'd be glad to hear it! But it'd be least-common-denominator: sometimes there are network logos at the bottom that I crop off. Sometimes there are bigger logos/messages, of the "Supergirl Premieres 10/14' variety, which require more cropping.
Judging from the linked image above of what is appearing on Facebook, it looks like Facebook is doubling the image size. As you noted, tnt, doubling the image size is going to muck up the image. They're doing it, they're mucking it up. I'll do what I can to keep the image as "pristine" as possible, but if they're going to blow up the image then there's going to be degradation.
DVDs are a different story, as are retro channel airings. I won't bore you with those.
The alternative to all of this (which pretty much exhausts my knowledge of photo and jpg web use! :) ), would be to either not do articles on current shows, not do articles with photos, use generic images which kind of defeats the purpose of my providing exclusive content, or hope that the images on (say) farfaraway are useable in reviews and that there are such images available. In the case of AHS, that doesn't appear to be the case. Jan, David, and/or Shelley would need to let me know which they prefer if they want me to do something different.
Oh, there is a "Manage Images" button at the bottom of the editor. But it takes you to a gallery for the article, and other then putting in a description, it doesn't let you do anything with the images.
Gislef's article for American Horror Story is posted. I sent the social media blast through buffer instead of Hootsuite. Looking at my FB feed, the image looks OK.
*kicks stepson off of the computer*
It looks okay to me. Not the greatest, but as I noted earlier image selection choices weren't that great.
But then again, the one I'm seeing looks the same size as the one I posted (after resizing).
The Black Lightning piece doesn't currently show me an image on FB. Is that part of Shelley changing it yesterday after it went up?
Then again, FB is awfully slow on our computer. Maybe it'll go faster if I bring it up on my Brand. New. Phone! Imagine me as your cranky grandpa who is still getting used to this new-fangled "Internet" thing. :) I suppose that's why I occasionally do articles on older shows: I'm old school.
Well, I did the Supernatural review tonight. The image (and sound) quality was a lot better. Whether that translates into whatever is going on at Facebook, I don't know. We'll see.
LadyShelley wrote:
Gislef's article for American Horror Story is posted. I sent the social media blast through buffer instead of Hootsuite. Looking at my FB feed, the image looks OK.
I suppose we have a different definition of OK image... When I say OK, I have in mind something like this https://i.imgur.com/86ETmDS.jpg
But since it looks like I'm the only one who find this kind of quality awful, I'll just shut my piehole. As long as TPTB are fine with what they're offering to the people, it's not my place to say. Won't be bothering y'all anymore.
Just to be clear: in the example image above there's no image processing involved. Just a decent video source and a simple frame grab at the source resolution.
tnt wrote:
I suppose we have a different definition of OK image... When I say OK, I have in mind something like this https://i.imgur.com/86ETmDS.jpgBut since it looks like I'm the only one who find this kind of quality awful, I'll just shut my piehole. As long as TPTB are fine with what they're offering to the people, it's not my place to say. Won't be bothering y'all anymore.
That image you say is OK is the one I posted that I was worried about earlier because of the low quality of the source. It's a later (and smaller) image than the Wrecked one that you posted earlier. So... we've resolved the issue. As you note, there was no image processing. The only change I made was to not process (i.e., resize it to 500px width) before I put it into the article editor.
So I'm not sure what the issue is/was: if it's something I was doing (apparently the case), or something Facebook is doing, or something at your end. If my not image-processing it resolved the issue, great! I didn't image process for for the Supernatural article last night, and the Titans article that I just posted, and will continue to not image process going forward.
If you see it happen again, please let me know. Although I don't know what else I can do, so all advice welcome.
So I have a thought on the image problem, and I suspect it's either HootSuite (or Buffer) or Facebook that's the culprit. When I make the announcement posts through HootSuite (or Buffer) that software creates a compressed thumbnail of the first image used in the article. Facebook then blows up the *thumbnail*, not the original image, for the picture that shows up in news feeds. That might be why they look so bad at times. It's blowing up an already over compressed image and making it even more over-sized than the original.
It's an idea at least.
I can turn off the images for Facebook, if we have to.
LadyShelley wrote:
So I have a thought on the image problem, and I suspect it's either HootSuite (or Buffer) or Facebook that's the culprit. When I make the announcement posts through HootSuite (or Buffer) that software creates a compressed thumbnail of the first image used in the article. Facebook then blows up the *thumbnail*, not the original image, for the picture that shows up in news feeds. That might be why they look so bad at times. It's blowing up an already over compressed image and making it even more over-sized than the original.It's an idea at least.
I can turn off the images for Facebook, if we have to.
Maybe there's some settings that could be tweaked? Literally from a dozen of different news pages I follow not a single one looks that way.
LadyShelley wrote:
So I have a thought on the image problem, and I suspect it's either HootSuite (or Buffer) or Facebook that's the culprit. When I make the announcement posts through HootSuite (or Buffer) that software creates a compressed thumbnail of the first image used in the article. Facebook then blows up the *thumbnail*, not the original image, for the picture that shows up in news feeds. That might be why they look so bad at times. It's blowing up an already over compressed image and making it even more over-sized than the original.
Shrinking an image to a thumbnail means data loss and then to turn around and use the already badly compromised image to enlarge just compounds the problem. It's like taking a glass of fine Scotch, dumping 75~90% of it out and then adding back a litre of water ... that Scotch will no longer be fine ... same with images.
I don't use FB so have no clue about what's what but couldn't you reach out to another, none competitive, site that does the same sort of thing but doesn't have this problem to find out their process/software?
Just thinking out loud. ymmv
I understand the whole thumbnail thing, which is why I (mostly, and certainly for "lead photos") avoid the small-image thing blow-up thing.
But I'm limited to my sources. There just aren't a lot of AHS and MacGyver images for a given episode. And I was doing the "pre-process before inserting into the editor" thing which I've stopped. So my question was and is still: has the image distortion happened for my last three reviews: Supernatural, Titans, MacGyver?
If it's not, then problem solved. If someone could confirm? It seems to have worked with American Horror Story, but I'd like more confirmation.
If it doesn't stop it, then we try something else.
Again, I don't do FB so I really don't know if any of the following links will be helpful or just annoying white noise ... I googled around a bit and thought these may offer hints or clues to the potential problem ... or they could be a complete waste of time.
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-image-sizes-guide/
https://iag.me/socialmedia/reviews/7-reasons-not-to-use-hootsuite/
https://help.hootsuite.com/hc/en-us/articles/204586000-Attach-images-to-messages
https://blog.bufferapp.com/ideal-image-sizes-social-media-posts
Well, again, the question is if what I'm doing now is resolving the issue tnt noted. He posted a copy of one image since then that he said was satisfactory. I've posted four articles since then: are they satisfactory on FB?
If they are, then Shelley doesn't need to find a Hootsuite workaround.
If they aren't, then we at least know that and can move on.
I'd check it out, but I never saw the problem in the first place. That's not to say it didn't exist: only that I couldn't address it if I couldn't see it.
If it's a matter of image size, then what I've got is what I've got. It's the highest available quality that's available to me. If someone has availability to something better and it's necessary, let me know. I can pull in images from the sites that tnt provided, assuming they're available for the episodes I'm writing about. But that's going to have the issues that I've already noted.
But first let's determine if it's necessary. Anyone?
Gislef wrote:
I understand the whole thumbnail thing, which is why I (mostly, and certainly for "lead photos") avoid the small-image thing blow-up thing.But I'm limited to my sources. There just aren't a lot of AHS and MacGyver images for a given episode. And I was doing the "pre-process before inserting into the editor" thing which I've stopped. So my question was and is still: has the image distortion happened for my last three reviews: Supernatural, Titans, MacGyver?
If it's not, then problem solved. If someone could confirm? It seems to have worked with American Horror Story, but I'd like more confirmation.
If it doesn't stop it, then we try something else.
The images in FB are not distorted anymore. The other aspects seems inconspicuous to everyone but me.
So as long as everyone else is fine with whatever we have, we could stop right here. I don't want to be the last wheel of the coach.
Then it looks like the image solution worked. I'll continue using it
What are the other aspects? *looks through thread* I thought the issue you were having was with the image distortion, and nobody else was seeing it.
