2006-Jan-27
by Bluetales.com team

Most viewers of this site view images at either 600 or 900 pixels resolution. That means the number of pixels along the longest dimension is 600 or 900 pixels; the shorter side of the image will be less. So, if you're editing an image for the site, try to make the longest edge of the image either 600 or 900 pixels. Why? Because, if you submit an image larger than that, it will automatically be scaled down to one of those sizes. Some site viewers think that the automatic scaling process can introduce image artifacts; it certainly doesn't perform any extra sharpening, which is something most people like to maintain control over.

Another recommendation is to make certain that your image dimension (in the longest edge, again) is an exact multiple of 100 pixels (600, 700, 800, etc.). This will cause a more "even" scaling when the image size is reduced. If you upload an image that's 605 pixels, it will look far worse at 600 pixels than you might imagine.

While you can upload images as large as you like, the website software will reject any file that is more than 200 kb in size. I recommend that you do not upload images larger than 600 or 900 pixels. Why? Because large images are "useful"--that is, someone can get the full-sized image and use it in their brochure or newsletter without telling you about it. A small image (600 pixels) is really only useful for viewing online.

Big, wide borders are considered part of the image and will be reduced along with everything else. For example, if you have a 600-pixel image with a 100-pixel border on each side, that's really an 800-pixel image. It will get reduced to 600 pixels total, and your 600-pixel image will be only 450 pixels. This will appear like a large postage stamp on many viewer's 1600x1200 monitors.

Post images in JPG format. The site will also accept PNG images; however, the most recent statistics show that about 24% of our visitors cannot view PNG images. No other image formats (GIF, BMP, etc.) are supported.

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