While you're at it, can something be done to the jpg compression for the voting page images which generates too many artifacts in solid/bright reds?

I'm with you on that. Jmh implemented the heavy compression to keep the bandwidth down. I'd be interested in seeing the effect on performance and bandwidth if we simply lessened the compression amount.

Another alternative I'm totally for is creating a user option (set on the options/profile page) to view the preview image by default or the full size image by default, with a page specifically setup to handle the full size images. I mean, if a person always opens up the full size image when they load the page, why not make it easier for them to just jump straight to that. Especially if it's just an option. The overriding concern in all this bandwidth and performance, but if a user always views large, that means they are also loading the low quality preview. In this case they would only see the large image and not the small one, which could potentially reduce bandwidth

But, does that not slow down too much, for people with slow Internet connections? Why not leave it to four votes per page to vote on, and a little less compressed?

agreed on this one! The more ambiguous the objects, the more "outside the box" (as it seemed to be a concern recently) a person can think, and create with.

Need more pics of 318830.

That's why it would be an OPTION.

yeh lets cater for the dialups !

LOL..talk about my favorite PSC pet peeves...
Catering to dial -ups.......tough crap on dial-ups.
It's a graphic site for one, and second..does anybody else do it??
yes--of course people cater to dial ups-
-but only on sites with check-outs where slow page loads can cost sales fast, and I
don't see nobody selling freaking tea-cozies or Family Circus comic books heya.
I wanna see WOW start catering to dial-ups. How sweet would that be...everybody loves that 1999 pixelated look.
So onto peeve two....
compression...unfreaking believable compression..I
have a freaking idea for ya..why don't we do just like 99.99999%
of the websites out there and NOT freaking COMPRESS AT ALL!
You know how much money and bandwidth compression saves this site?
FREAKING ZERO IT'S FREAKING 2007 AND TEN DOLLARS A MONTH GETS YOU TWICE THE FREAKING BANDWIDTH THIS SITE COULD EVER POSSIBLY USE UP!
You have to be a total idiot to worry about saving bandwidth at the cost of customer service, and quality of website anymore....and be doing it for no reason at all.

Explorer!

What happened to chopping what ya got...some of the best contest I remember were from what I considered shit source images...Im not talkin quality of image but just...what the hell do I do with that.
So now we get to pick what we consider to be a good chopping source image...next year why don't we just put up chopped images and we pick the ones we want to win...(Insert sarcasm font)...
Half the skill is making some thing other than what it is...I would like to see it go back to 1 week advantage and what you get is what you get as far as a source image.

OK old fart finished talking, back to you youngins

Maybe I should take that dialup remark back, it seems to hurt people a bit....

Bravo !


The sit is using an ratio of approximately 40% and gives a size of 35k on average.. and it looks crap on solid lumps of R, G or B.

Ramping it up to 75% would only make the same given image 57k and would look much better.

85% would be 78k and 90% quality (virtually lossless with an image that size) would still only be about 100k !

Why not take it back a step further and have a prize contest where NOBODY can see the image until 8am day of contest. I know it will never happen.

At one time it was all about how quickly you form the idea, and execute it.


I can still look back and see images Chrispis or tbeghin put out in 1 hour that would compete with anything up today.

Amen to that brother, I would start choppin again if we had that once a week or two...makes it more about ideas and skills rather than time spent on searching and refining.