Rules change: longest side and file size for Contest Submission photos

[mnhtnbb]

Last edited Wed Jan 20, 2016, 09:20 AM - Edit history (1)

The first time I hosted a contest (October 2015) there was some serious distress expressed after the winners were announced that
quite a few photos had been submitted which did not meet the rules posted for longest side to be no more than 800 px. The next time
I hosted (Autumn Seasonal) I did my best to encourage compliance with that rule--even going so far as to resize a couple of submissions myself.
(Personally, I don't think it should be the host's responsibility to do that, and not every host will want to do it.)

Looking back at the last four monthly contests, I have found 15 entries that did not meet the longest side requirement (none that exceeded 1024 px)
and a number that exceeded the 300K file size limit--including one that met the longest side requirement but was 613K. It appears that the more
detail/color that exists in the photo, the greater likelihood the photo will have a larger file size. The largest file size photo I found was 675K, and there
were several in the 400-675K range, but the majority of photos were 400K or less.

There is no way to know whether someone hasn't submitted a photo in any contest because the photographer recognized it wouldn't meet
the current limitations, but it could be possible.

In the interest of fairness to all photographers, please vote whether to keep the current rules (800 px longest side and 300K file size)
or change them to reflect what seems to be common dimensions of many digital photos.

I will keep the poll up for one week. Majority rules.

Edited to add: I raised the question in a recent thread and Mira kindly volunteered me (thanks, Mira!) to 'handle' getting some kind of a decision.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/103649572#post2

So, this is my effort to get us all to come to a decision.

6 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Time expired
	The longest side/file size of a photo submitted for a contest be no more than 800 px and 300K (current rule)
	1 (17%)
	The longest side/file size of a photo submitted for a contest be no more than 1024 px and 675K
	5 (83%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[NV Whino]

1. Don't care

I'll probably continue with smaller size because I'm too lazy to change parameters in Photobucket.

[Mira]

2. I'm too ignorant to change them,

so I'm going to need help with that. I thought all I would have to do is click on a different size for importing the image. I will have to research this, because I will be happy when all our photos are larger which is what I think the outcome of this exercise will be.

I'm delighted mnhttnbb is taking this on - she understands it - I don't. When she ran the contest she is referring to my photo was too large and I did not know it, but she alerted me to it. It turned out I could not see the size the photo was showing in because "my account" setting here at DU was set to Standard, and when I switched to Classic the real size showed up.

[elleng]

3. I had trouble changing mine,

so mnhttnbb had to 'fix' it so it would comply. Don't know what I'll do, in the future.

[2naSalit]

4. Same here

and I didn't know that about account setting, and I haven't figured out how to deal with it on Photobucket yet either.

Glad you said something!

[mnhtnbb]

5. A lot of the distress about longest side is due to the Standard/Classic account setting

which I didn't know was an option until it was pointed out to me. I had always had my account set to standard, so I didn't see
any photos showing up as exceeding the 800 px limit in any of the contests!

Here's how you can see it.


Go to My Account at the top of your screen and left click it.
Under Preferences, look at the second option down "Preferred format for regular web browsers", then look to the right. Click on classic and you
will see your screen layout change and then open any one of the monthly photo contest submission threads. I'll offer the October one--which was the first one I ran--as an example.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/103646992

Photos will then appear in different sizes due to the change in account setting.


If you scroll down the list of submissions for October your eye will easily pick out 9 photos that are larger than the others. If you right click on any photo and select "View Image Info" it will give you the size of the file (KB) and length x width dimensions (px)

If you use photobucket--which I do--you can resize any photo that you have uploaded to photobucket simply by entering the number you want
for either length or width, and it will automatically resize it proportionally. This is not to say that photobucket
isn't difficult at times, and sometimes I have to upload a photo more than once in order to get it to 'save' when resized, but most of the time it
will save the resized photo without a problem. Then you copy & paste the new IMG URL that you saved from resizing the photo. After you've done
it a couple of times it's pretty easy.

The reason I chose 1024 for the longest side is that many photos that haven't been zoomed or cropped a lot will upload at that dimension to photobucket
and won't require resizing. It's really easy to check, though, just by selecting the resize option and it will give you the dimensions of the photo you uploaded.

File size I suspect was an issue back in the day when a lot of DU'er's were dealing with dial-up, and it would take too much time for larger files to display.
I don't think it's such an issue these days, which was why I pushed the file size limit to 675K. In reviewing photos, that was the largest I found that
was displayed with a 1024 px longest side and most of the photos were < 400K. So, really an arbitrary choice, but one that shouldn't require many people to resize photos smaller just because of file size. It's the photos that are very detailed or have lots of different colors to them that have larger file sizes.

I hope this helps explain it. Until someone explained it to me, I didn't realize that lots of photos were being submitted to the contests that didn't meet
the size limitations. And if DU'ers are viewing the photo contests in Classic mode, then some people feel pretty strongly that the larger photos have
an 'edge' when it comes to getting votes.

[ManiacJoe]

12. Standard v Classic

Wow. What a difference!

I like that Classic does not resize the images, but the superwide layout sucks.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. I don't care, but I will say this much...

I did change my settings to "classic" to see what this was all about, and with my laptop, the bigger photos were not fully visible on my screen. I had to scroll to see the full photo, and that is beyond annoying to me. I have no doubt that I would not vote for a photo that is too large, partly because not seeing the photo on the screen takes something away from the impact, and partly because it would just bother me.

I am assuming that if I leave my settings at "standard", I will not have this same problem. And if that is the case, it will not matter at all to me.

[alfredo]

8. If your image is in portrait mode, it will mean scrolling, even at the old standards.

[Curmudgeoness]

11. Yes, but

did you see the cathedral with classic setting? I had to scroll and scroll to see that whole photo. I have not had a significant problem with seeing the photos fully in the past. But like I said, it isn't a big deal with the setting that I have now.

[alfredo]

13. I'd be easy staying with the 800X600 as long as the 300k rule is slackened

[Solly Mack]

18. Me, too.

[alfredo]

19. Still, some of my images just work better large.

1200X900, but still gets resized to 800X600

[Solly Mack]

20. Some do, some don't. The option would be nice.

[alfredo]

21. True.

I think the admins don't want large files screwing with the formatting of the page.

[Solly Mack]

22. That is a consideration.

[alfredo]

7. If you are shooting wide angle, a lot of info is crammed into the frame.

[Solly Mack]

9. I'm OK with changing the size/dimension allowed.

Complying with the rules is something everyone participating should do.

As host, I would ask people to resize or do it for them if they needed me to. No biggie.

When I go over file size, and I sometimes do, I always ask the host if it's OK. I've been told "No" before, and I complied.

[CC]

10. If you don't know how to re-size just

ask. Some will re-size it for you. That used to be added but as we go on things get missed between contest. Good job mnhtnbb (and Mira) on posting a poll and moving this along. TY

[mnhtnbb]

14. Haven't been available--might not be until Monday--laptop problems

since the motherboard died! Will catch up with everyone later.

[Mira]

15. I'll keep an eye on this thread til mnhtnbb returns

I have not been around for a day, and am surprised and happy to see this many responses and the fact that we will be increasing the size of our entries.
Have not had the time to figure out what I need to learn to do it if anything but that will come, and I know we will help each other if necessary.

[mnhtnbb]

16. Thanks, Mira!

Am using my husband's clunky old laptop--just lost a post. My oldest son--the techie one--went shopping with
me last night to buy a new laptop. He took that and the old one home with him last night to get it set up for me.
He should be able to remove hard drive of old one to transfer files to new one. I just hope he's able to get the
work I'd already done on TurboTax transferred--because only files will transfer, not programs. Sigh. All photos
should transfer, I hope! It's going to be an opportunity to learn a new software program for managing photos,
because he's going to install Linux OS for me--no Windows 10--and we're not sure the Canon software will run on Linux.
I'm going to have a steep learning curve for a while!

Yes, also happy to see so many votes for new rules!

[ManiacJoe]

17. Assuming we eventually go with the bigger size,

we are going to need Skinner to stop resizing the "standard" view to 800 pixels or at least change the resizing.

[mnhtnbb]

23. Checking in.

Want to let everyone know that my husband and I will be out of town--leaving Wednesday--and won't be back until Feb. 1st. Mira, however this turns out,
can you or other group hosts run with the poll results as far as checking with Skinner for Admin issues?

Still using my husband's laptop for internet access, and may not get my new laptop from my son until we're back from our trip.

[Mira]

24. Everyone: to all who have written here and participated

Since mnhttnbb won't be around when the week is over in a couple of days, or thereabouts, I will not do anything right now because the discussion seems good and needed and overdue.

YET:
I don't know enough, as I have clearly shown, to approach the powers that be at DU to speak intelligently about our intentions.
Is there anyone who will take this to them and get it approved?
Please!

[ManiacJoe]

25. I can do that.

[Mira]

27. ManiacJoe: I thank you for responding to help me.

It makes me feel ignorant to be unable to see this through properly, and that's not a good thing, especially since I was involved in getting the polling started. Maybe something better will come from that discomfort.

It's silly for me to handle something where I am not able to speak intelligently to state our case - or to argue it. I have never checked any photo for how many k's it has, and don't know how. I'm one of the amateurs in this stellar group, just, possibly unfortunately, a vocal one.

In the absence of mnhttnbb, and in the presence of your willingness to do it, we need to now ask DU for permission to increase the size of our photos for the contests. The poll showed an overwhelming desire to do it with 23 in favor and one against.

Since you are willing to get this done we can then present mnhttnbb with the accomplished task when she returns, and present 2naSalit with the new larger photographs when she starts the February submissions.

[CC]

28. I'm not sure what powers you

need to contact. The rules for photo size on contest were made by the group. It looks like this time around the votes are in favor of larger photos. So we can change the size limits on the next contest if the voting is over.


TY for both of you moving this a long.



Editing to add. I just went into photobucket to try to resize there. (I usually resize in Photoshop.) The largest you can resize to is 800 pixels on the longest side. I did not know that.


Now I am testing something.






So I uploaded this picture of my niece at 2592 x 3872 ppi and 27.8 mbs to photobucket. They automatically resized it to 685px × 1,024px and 137.26 KB in photobucket. So seems 1024 is the the max for photobucket.

[Adsos Letter]

30. I think 1024 is also the max for Flickr.

So, there is that.

Hope you are well recovered.

[CC]

31. Sounds like they have helped us

pick the max size.


Yes I have beaten the evil winter sickness, finished all the meds and dug out of the snow. TY Though the snow is all around and beautiful I have decided to stay inside as much as I am able instead of tramping through it for photos. Then again not sure I am in any kind of shape to try to tramp through about 3 feet of snow. (not including drifts.)

[Mira]

34. This is the most beautiful child

how can you not completely lose it just looking at her.
And she is really smart, too. She is pondering something and thinking very hard.

[CC]

35. She was born thinking

and her mother has no clue what she is in for. Her father & uncle were born thinking too and it was work to keep up with them. I think she is beautiful but I am biased. Her big sister is a beauty too. If you look close you'll see her right eye is different from her left eye. She has blue eyes but the right eye is one quarter brown. When she is better at following directions I will get a better photo of her irises. Oh and she is stubborn. Her poor mom. lol

[Mira]

36. Her intelligence is so obvious!

My Mom always told me: you can tell a person's smarts by studying their face. That's a kid I would like to meet just so I could interact with her a bit. How old is she?

[CC]

37. She needs a bit more time to

get some language skills, she is 18 months old. I seem to be the only one that lets her talk. Her big sister is good at telling what she wants before she can say herself. (Big sister is only 5 though so doesn't understand waiting.)

[mnhtnbb]

26. Thank you so much, Mira and others, who have helped with this OP

Seems as though when it rains, it pours, or actually it sleets this time around. Our driveway is still not cleared from the snow/ice/sleet storm
although yesterday I had someone scrape off the top layer of mush to expose the ice underneath, which will, hopefully, melt today in expected 60 degrees. Still need to get Snowy to the vet to update her shots for boarding AND get her to the pet resort tomorrow before we leave for the airport. We had hoped to
use miles to upgrade our seats for the flight across the pond, but the cancellations from weather have significantly reduced the number of upgrade
seats available...such is life. My son called last night and has my new laptop all set up, but I'll wait to get it after we return. Then he can show me how
to use new software for photos!

[CC]

29. Thank you to you and Mira

for taking this on again. Looks like it will be 1024 on the longest side. See above to my photobucket experiment. You made a good call on the size.

[Blue_In_AK]

32. I know nothing about this.

I just give my pics to PhotoBucket and hope that they size them right. Were any of mine out of line?

[Mira]

33. I submitted the question -

and when the administrators answer I will report the result.

[mnhtnbb]

38. Thanks, Mira!

From London.

[Mira]

39. AWESOME! Say hello

to big Ben please.
Have a great time, and enjoy the vistas.

[mnhtnbb]

40. I didn't see Big Ben this time...

and we got back yesterday. Hope to have my son bring my new laptop to me this evening so I can get started
learning new software for cameras. Didn't take a lot of photos on this trip--but do have a few I'm anxious to see
on the computer.

[Mira]

41. Welcome home!

What a short trip that was considering you crossed the ocean. I hope all went well, and that you enjoyed the traveling which can be pretty arduous these days.
I'm glad you are back.

[mnhtnbb]

42. Thanks!

Direct flight from RDU to London makes it a bit easier--one of the reasons we went--but we didn't get the upgrade using miles we were hoping to get
on the overnight flight on the way over. The storm caused enough cancellations/rebookings that it filled the business class cabin so no upgrade for us.
Luckily we had exit row seats on the return flight, so plenty of legroom.

Still waiting to get together with my son for the laptop.

[ManiacJoe]

43. Response from Skinner:

The DU software is going to keep resizing the images down to 800 pixels.

However, the resizing is only in the view. If you do a right-click "show image" in your browser, the full-size image will be displayed at its full size and quickly since the full-size image was already downloaded prior to the view showing it smaller.

My recommendation is to resize your images to 1000 or so pixels so that those wanting a full-screen view can have it while others are not penalized by downloading megabytes of data they will never see.

[Make7]

44. Would it make sense to keep size limits for the image in the post with a link to to full size image?

For example:

[div style="text-align:center;"][div style="display:inline-block; text-align:center;"]
View original size (123 KB)

I just quickly grabbed that off a public domain photo site that had a displayed preview image with a link to a larger original (although not very large in this case).

Anyway, for the display of the photos in the post(s) there could still be a reasonable size constraint but would allow people to view/download the original size photo (or some larger sized photo with more generous size limits). As long as people put the filesize (maybe dimensions as well) in the link (or next to it) no one would be downloading very large files without choosing to do so.

To put an image in a &lsqb;link:] tag, replace the period for the file extension with %2E. Like this:

[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:3px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius:0.4615em; box-shadow:-1px -1px 3px #bfbfbf inset;"]&lsqb;link:http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-stock-photos-4/travel/death-valley/death-valley-sand-dunes%2Ejpg|View original size (123 KB)]
Not sure if that is helpful, but I saw the threads about this in the ATA forum and thought I would point out some options given the constraints of image sizes in posts here.

[font style="font-variant:small-caps;"]-Make7[/font]

[ManiacJoe]

45. That would work very well for individual posts.

For the contests, it might be more work than it's worth for the contest host.

[Make7]

46. There are options - automate the process and/or make it part of the submission.

It would be pretty easy to write an html/javascript file to do all the code from a few text entries that could be copy and pasted from submittal information - name, title, displayed image url, download image url, download image size, etc.

Or people wanting to add a downloadable image could just submit the code with standard html tag delimiters < > and then when posting a 'search and replace' could be done to get the DU delimiters &lsqb; ].

Or an html/javascript file or bookmarklet could be written to use the actual html of a normally submitted post and turn it into the required DU code - that might be less copying and pasting for the contest host than is required now.

I don't really follow the photo contests and am unaware of what formatting might be used but my normal philosophy is to figure out how something should be done and then try to determine if that can be achieved with a reasonable amount of effort.

Anyway, it's just food for thought.