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Pipits in the Masai Mara (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter cranefan
- Start date
Valéry Schollaert
Respect animals, don't eat or wear their body or s
Anthus cinnamomeus indeed.
Valéry Schollaert
Respect animals, don't eat or wear their body or s
I looks like, though if you can post larger image, it would be less difficult...
Valéry Schollaert
Respect animals, don't eat or wear their body or s
no, you can upload much bigger images.
Valéry Schollaert
Respect animals, don't eat or wear their body or s
I suggest you use jgp images.
You can upload up to 981.3 KB, (1600x1200) which is far enough.
You can upload up to 981.3 KB, (1600x1200) which is far enough.
Valéry Schollaert
Respect animals, don't eat or wear their body or s
Plain-backed yes.
Welcome to Bird Forum (BF) Cranefan. I'm not one of the experts who can help much with identifying your birds. However, I have been helped here a lot.
I notice you are posting png files for some reason. Most people use jpgs (which is what your camera should produce, and which show a greater range of colours, which can be important for identification)
Also, all of your photos seem to be small, barely bigger than the thumbnail itself. If your photos simply are that small, then I apologise for picking you up on it, but maybe you could change your technique and produce photos more helpful to those who want to identify them for you.
There are rules about photo size on BirdForum (to save on the server space). When I started, it wasn't obvious how to get the balance between quality and small file size that BF wants. So I experimented and here is how I do it now.
Open your photo in whatever software you use to edit photos. To make sure you don't save over the original, Save the photo somewhere (as a jpg if it isn't already) with a new name (I add BF to the photo name, or S for 'small').
Crop this newly saved photo so that the important bit for identification is in the photo. For printing, you may want an artistic photo with branches, flowers and sky, but for identification, you basically just want the bird. Adjust the levels to get as good a contrast and brightness in the photo as you can.
You want your photo to be 'not too big' and 'not too small'. On your software, check the photo size - I use Photoshop Elements, so I find the 'Resize' section under 'Image'. Check that the longest side is 1000 pixels or less (BF maximum is 1024x900, but this works for me). But at the same time try to get the long side as near to 1000 as you can, so the photo will be fairly large. Play around with cropping more or resizing to get the best quality you can.
(Depending on the subject, if the photo is really clear but small, it may even be worth magnifying the photo, by putting in a larger pixel number than the original. (Remember, most screens will have about 90 pixels per inch.))
Then save the photo again, making sure that the File Size is less than 300kb (the BF gallery size is 325kb, but again this rule works for me). To do this with Photoshop Elements, use the quality slider after you press 'Save' - this tells you what the file size is. Don't worry that the 'Quality' is getting lower because you have already made the photo as good as it can be in the first step of editing, just concentrate on the file size here.
You don't have to worry about the thumbnail size: BF will make a thumbnail for you. Try to get as good and large a picture as you can within the 1024x900 and 325kb limits for a single picture. (Valéry in this thread gives a much higher number, but unless it's changed recently, then I think I'm right.)
You post the photos using 'Manage Photos' on the BF site as you have obviously worked out how to do already.
I hope this helps in the future. And if it's just that your photos are really small, then I apologise again. But your photo basic quality seems fine, and so it seems odd that ALL of your photos on all of your threads are so small.
I notice you are posting png files for some reason. Most people use jpgs (which is what your camera should produce, and which show a greater range of colours, which can be important for identification)
Also, all of your photos seem to be small, barely bigger than the thumbnail itself. If your photos simply are that small, then I apologise for picking you up on it, but maybe you could change your technique and produce photos more helpful to those who want to identify them for you.
There are rules about photo size on BirdForum (to save on the server space). When I started, it wasn't obvious how to get the balance between quality and small file size that BF wants. So I experimented and here is how I do it now.
Open your photo in whatever software you use to edit photos. To make sure you don't save over the original, Save the photo somewhere (as a jpg if it isn't already) with a new name (I add BF to the photo name, or S for 'small').
Crop this newly saved photo so that the important bit for identification is in the photo. For printing, you may want an artistic photo with branches, flowers and sky, but for identification, you basically just want the bird. Adjust the levels to get as good a contrast and brightness in the photo as you can.
You want your photo to be 'not too big' and 'not too small'. On your software, check the photo size - I use Photoshop Elements, so I find the 'Resize' section under 'Image'. Check that the longest side is 1000 pixels or less (BF maximum is 1024x900, but this works for me). But at the same time try to get the long side as near to 1000 as you can, so the photo will be fairly large. Play around with cropping more or resizing to get the best quality you can.
(Depending on the subject, if the photo is really clear but small, it may even be worth magnifying the photo, by putting in a larger pixel number than the original. (Remember, most screens will have about 90 pixels per inch.))
Then save the photo again, making sure that the File Size is less than 300kb (the BF gallery size is 325kb, but again this rule works for me). To do this with Photoshop Elements, use the quality slider after you press 'Save' - this tells you what the file size is. Don't worry that the 'Quality' is getting lower because you have already made the photo as good as it can be in the first step of editing, just concentrate on the file size here.
You don't have to worry about the thumbnail size: BF will make a thumbnail for you. Try to get as good and large a picture as you can within the 1024x900 and 325kb limits for a single picture. (Valéry in this thread gives a much higher number, but unless it's changed recently, then I think I'm right.)
You post the photos using 'Manage Photos' on the BF site as you have obviously worked out how to do already.
I hope this helps in the future. And if it's just that your photos are really small, then I apologise again. But your photo basic quality seems fine, and so it seems odd that ALL of your photos on all of your threads are so small.
Most informative, dear MacNara
But there is quite a mess regarding size: the actual size for jpeg is 1200*1600 and 493 kB which is quite large but there are even larger sizes allowed for jpg but honnestly I do not even know what they mean by jpg as the standard is jpeg, maybe someone can help here.
I would also emphasize on what MacNara said about cropping: crop as much as possible first and only leave the bird, we do not need blue sky, bushes or a perfect composition following the rule of thirds, just the bird.
Thanks for all the tips, I've been struggling a bit with working out how to manage pictures with a load of new software. Office 2013 doesn't include Picture Manager for some reason, which is very annoying, but I think I've solved it now. I just have to edit them in Word.
Quite a few of the pictures are small because they're just a small cropped section, taken of a distant bird. I do have plenty of decent pictures but in general I know what the bird is so I haven't had to post them up.
Thanks again for your help!
Quite a few of the pictures are small because they're just a small cropped section, taken of a distant bird. I do have plenty of decent pictures but in general I know what the bird is so I haven't had to post them up.
Thanks again for your help!
You're welcome.
I have a Mac, and I don't use any Microsoft software, but I can't imagine that editing photos in Word is a long-term solution, if you are going to be taking a lot of pictures. Word is probably why it's a png, not a jpg. Photoshop Elements is quite cheap, and an excellent program if you are not a full professional. There are probably free programs that do the basics on Windows. But I really think you'll have a lot more fun if you splash out a few dollars on one of these real photo editing applications.
There seems to be some disagreement about the BF allowable size, but I have had stuff declined by BF which is much smaller than the sizes TConzemi and Valéry mention, so I was fairly confident of my dimension information. But maybe things have changed over the years (my earlier post in this thread was an edited version of things I wrote for someone else on this forum several years ago). I may test tomorrow to see what happens with bigger photos than I have used before.
In any case, the photo of the Plain-backed Pipit you posted was only 306 x 275 pixels, which is very small. I really think if you used jpg and more appropriate software, you would get better results. My current camera - Pentax K-5 - has 3264 x 4928 pixels per jpg, so your photo would be about 0.5% of that area, which is really tiny, even ignoring the effect of a zoom lens.
Indeed, as I said, the quality of your photo looks very good, so even resizing through magnification in Photoshop still makes it easier to see relevant detail, as in the attachment (jpg, 900 x 449). But I think if you had kept it as a jpg to begin with, which is surely what your camera produced, then used appropriate software to keep or make it fairly large even after cropping (1,000 pixels, e.g.), then even with some loss of 'quality' to keep the file size down, it would still be much better for you and people who want to help you on BF.
Whoever is right about the jpg uploadable size, the png upload size is fairly small (297.7kb). I've never used png for much except logos, but it seems to be not very efficient, since according to my computer, your png at 306 x 275 seems to be almost twice the file size (in kb) of my much larger jpg (900 x 449) of the same picture.
I have a Mac, and I don't use any Microsoft software, but I can't imagine that editing photos in Word is a long-term solution, if you are going to be taking a lot of pictures. Word is probably why it's a png, not a jpg. Photoshop Elements is quite cheap, and an excellent program if you are not a full professional. There are probably free programs that do the basics on Windows. But I really think you'll have a lot more fun if you splash out a few dollars on one of these real photo editing applications.
There seems to be some disagreement about the BF allowable size, but I have had stuff declined by BF which is much smaller than the sizes TConzemi and Valéry mention, so I was fairly confident of my dimension information. But maybe things have changed over the years (my earlier post in this thread was an edited version of things I wrote for someone else on this forum several years ago). I may test tomorrow to see what happens with bigger photos than I have used before.
In any case, the photo of the Plain-backed Pipit you posted was only 306 x 275 pixels, which is very small. I really think if you used jpg and more appropriate software, you would get better results. My current camera - Pentax K-5 - has 3264 x 4928 pixels per jpg, so your photo would be about 0.5% of that area, which is really tiny, even ignoring the effect of a zoom lens.
Indeed, as I said, the quality of your photo looks very good, so even resizing through magnification in Photoshop still makes it easier to see relevant detail, as in the attachment (jpg, 900 x 449). But I think if you had kept it as a jpg to begin with, which is surely what your camera produced, then used appropriate software to keep or make it fairly large even after cropping (1,000 pixels, e.g.), then even with some loss of 'quality' to keep the file size down, it would still be much better for you and people who want to help you on BF.
Whoever is right about the jpg uploadable size, the png upload size is fairly small (297.7kb). I've never used png for much except logos, but it seems to be not very efficient, since according to my computer, your png at 306 x 275 seems to be almost twice the file size (in kb) of my much larger jpg (900 x 449) of the same picture.
Attachments
kitefarrago
Well-known member
You ask a very interesting question, Tom, and I too wonder how the difference arose in the attachment manager.
Should I rename my .jpg files to .jpeg, and can I then really upload larger images?
Andrea
Should I rename my .jpg files to .jpeg, and can I then really upload larger images?
Andrea
Hello, everyone. I tried to test the photo system and came up with some strange results.
I put this in a thread of its own.
I put this in a thread of its own.
