What is going on with this forums auto resize?

allymac123

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Right that's it. I am well and truly fed up with these forums and their apparent 'anti photography' policy.

It was bad that it was ever changed in the first place from just being able to use the normal img tags to put an image in. But at least we had a workaround.

However whenever I make a post on this forum (usually its about a month or 2 after the last, when I have forgotten just how annoying it is to post images) I am reminded of why I don't post that much any more.


The re size is now beyond any sort of joke. I've started threads on this subject in the past, as have others, and they just seem to get ignored.

It now appears that my images that I personally re sized and sharpened to 954px wide which I have tested to be about the biggest resolution that will display on a 1024x768 monitor without any need to scroll have been resized to 800px and as a result have major sharpness issues.

So not only did I spend time inserting all the {imglink} codes by hand but they were ignored anyway.

If this forum wishes to remain with a decent photography section it needs to sort it's act out and pronto. As far as it seems to me no matter how hard I try to work around this forums convoluted method for satisfactorily embedding it never works anyway.

I totally understand the 1280px max size and the 300kb max size, I think they are perfect.

However if I can't display an image within those parameters in the way I want to see it displayed then I'm sorry but your not going to see many image posts from me and hence many other posts either. If you look at my posting history you will notice that my other posts are generally high around periods I have posted images and low among others. More and more recently I struggle to put up the images I have taken due to all the time it needs to hand write the tags and then when I find that time wasted I just don't know why I bother.


I hope it gets sorted for the sake of the forum.
 
If the forum criteria are now 1280px and 300kb and your stuff is within that remit (bearing in mind I still don't understand all the technicalities of this anyway), then I don't understand why the forum software is stepping in, but I do agree that when it does the results are often pretty awful, inconvenient and offputting so I hope it gets sorted too.
At the very least, if the goalposts keep getting moved, then I don't see why it can't be made more public so poeple know.
I don't post much, but it annoys me simply that so many others who do post are so peeved by it.

Just had a read of a recent poll thread though Ally and found this. Don't know if this affects your issue or not.
 
I think that Ally has said what many of us are thinking, only he has put in good technical detail the sums it all up.

As said, others have raised the issue, but nothing has been done to resolve it.

We all know and appreciate the high quality of input, both in terms on images and advice, that Ally has provided over a period of time. The fact that such a well respected member has voiced his concern so well should not go unheard or brushed under the carpet.

I have noticed that other well respected and established members (you know who you are) contributions have lessened immensely over recent months. It would be interesting to hear their take on the matter and whether it too is affecting their willingness to partake.

In my experience, posting images has always been somewhat "fiddly" (maybe its just me), but with the recent restrictions "Fiddly" has become more "pain in the arse".

I can honestly say that as far as forums are concerned, this is THE one that I have learnt the art of photography from, and most certainly the ONLY one that I try and take an active role in. It would be an awful shame that if, through restrictions, we lose a whole bunch of knowledgeable and inspirational contributors. Contributors who helped so much in making this forum the one that it is. Or should that read the forum that it used to be.
 
Ally did you see
THIS?
It is possible to reopen the issues, especially given the techncal aspects your have aborated ( beyond me a bit..:suicide:)
AFAIK there is no anti- photography sentiment in AVF and some of the compromises have been made to accomodated several (possibly conflcting) goals none of which aims to alienate anybody. Sturt hoever has the final say

As for the issue of well respected members posting less. I would similarly be keen to know why but it may be multifactorial rather than just this issue
On a personal level Im not averse to follow an embeddded image back to its host site at its larger size myself

To his credit, Zone has been very active in giving this matter the prominence it deserves , as susch there is no " sweeping it under the carpet as was hinted
And may I reiterate the esteem in whch we hold all or members and posters You make it waht it is
.Change is a part of life and it should not result in " forum that it used to be"
 
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I also am a bit unhappy with the constant changing, at least it seems to have settled down a bit recently.

Something I would like is the removal of some of the pop ups, I often check out the forum on my iPhone when away from home, the pages with the moving adds on take ages to load - or in actual fact the adds take ages, the forum stuff comes on in a flash.

Anything possible ?

Bill
 
Ally did you see
THIS?
It is possible to reopen the issues, especially given the techncal aspects your have aborated ( beyond me a bit..:suicide:)

I hadn't seen that actually. I suppose it does make things abit clearer in terms that there are now new guidelines. I wasn't aware of this. However the thread does seem interesting in that the poll results were effectively ignored...
I understand Stuarts point about him choosing 800px width. It means that the entire AVForums is viewable without any scrolling at all on a 1024px width screen.

However, and I believe myself to be worth of an opinion here, as I have used a laptop with a screen resolution of 1024x768 for the past couple of years or so and also had a 19" wide-screen monitor I could hook it up to.

I did a bit of testing when the allowed resolution for images was upped from 800px to something like 1280px IIRC. From that I decided that on my laptop screen images around the 950px width was best as it meant you didn't have to scroll to see the images. You did have to scroll if you wanted to see a full posters name occasionally but you didn't have to scroll to just read posts. And as I imagine most people (I would guess in excess of 90%) have resolutions wider than 1024 almost nobody would have any problem with it.

After such researching I set up a load of actions in photoshop (which takes a fair bit of my time) to work with these new sizes. Now apparently they are all defunct. It does seem to me that the forum is stepping back in time (and not in the way of 'it isn't what it used to be' because I'm all for change and am not a massive fan of tradition. However this 'new' change seems to me to be very backward and extremely inconvenient.

AFAIK there is no anti- photography sentiment in AVF and some of the compromises have been made to accomodated several (possibly conflcting) goals none of which aims to alienate anybody. Sturt hoever has the final say

As for the issue of well respected members posting less. I would similarly be keen to know why but it may be multifactorial rather than just this issue
On a personal level Im not averse to follow an embeddded image back to its host site at its larger size myself

To his credit, Zone has been very active in giving this matter the prominence it deserves , as susch there is no " sweeping it under the carpet as was hinted
And may I reiterate the esteem in whch we hold all or members and posters You make it waht it is
.Change is a part of life and it should not result in " forum that it used to be"

Different users obviously use this site in different ways but I don't generally like having to click through images to larger versions and in terms of my photo's that is not an option as I don't let larger sizes of my images available through flickr due to a number of copyright infringements. In a way this was giving something a little extra to AVForums users, that is a chance to see my images larger than my flickr contacts can.

AVForums isn't the only photography forum I use but it in the one that I post in most and by a massive margin at that. However I do post occasional images on other forums and I wish to do that at a size around 950px to then post on AVForums aswell requires me to re-edit the images to 800px just so I can post it on here. Basically its just becoming so much more time and effort to post on here, and I believe all that time and effort is unnecessary or it should be. From the time to re-edit, re-host, re-link and then the time to click on others images to get a decent size it all adds up to time I just don't have to, what I would class as, waste.

In the style of Duncan Bannatyne: "For that reason, I'm out"
 
Allymac - i you are indeed leaving that is very sad, your landscapes are amongst the best photo's on here.

Bill


I agree and a very helpful member, I also liked the info he provided on how he took his pictures.
 
In the style of Duncan Bannatyne: "For that reason, I'm out"

Ally
I certainly hope you reconsider as we would hate to lose a respected member from the photography forums in particular!:)

The decision for the size cap is purely one of aesthetics and the way the web page is displayed and is in no way meant to annoy and/or cheese people off!

It's just one of life's little inconveniences where there has to be a limit implemented!
 
And yet another excellent Phoptographer and Valued member departs.
I hardly post images here any more (I know I'm not an excellent Photog or valued member :D ) Mainly due to the extra work as mentioned above to make images which are sized for the majority of internet forums I use, comply with the 800px restriction. It's just too much time spent scaling, sharpening uploading linking...
:(
 
Right that's it. I am well and truly fed up with these forums and their apparent 'anti photography' policy.

Blimey, that's a bit harsh. If we had an anti-photography policy, surely we would just close the digital photography forum, rather than give it it's own dedicated home page and widen the allowed width of images to 800 pixels to accommodate DP users despite that breaking the display for more than 20% of viewers.

It was bad that it was ever changed in the first place from just being able to use the normal img tags to put an image in. But at least we had a workaround.
I explained why we had to have a limit in my thread. The 'work around' was an oversight on my part, forgetting to apply the size limits to the imglink BB tag.
What would be the point in applying a fix to the problem and then allowing people to side-step it? It should never have been available and I apologise for that oversight.

However whenever I make a post on this forum (usually its about a month or 2 after the last, when I have forgotten just how annoying it is to post images) I am reminded of why I don't post that much any more.

The re size is now beyond any sort of joke. I've started threads on this subject in the past, as have others, and they just seem to get ignored.
Well I'm sorry that the issue is a problem for you, but I think I've been transparent with regard to why we need the limit and I did increase the limit to cater for the most common width 1280 to the detriment of the more than 20% of people who still use 1024. And I certainly don't think I have ignored the issues.

It now appears that my images that I personally re sized and sharpened to 954px wide which I have tested to be about the biggest resolution that will display on a 1024x768 monitor without any need to scroll have been resized to 800px and as a result have major sharpness issues.

So not only did I spend time inserting all the {imglink} codes by hand but they were ignored anyway.
I'm sorry that you were told to use IMGLINK tags. That should never have happened.
I have attached a screen capture which shows the various elements which make up the display and mean that 800px is the widest round number we can use without crushing the elements of the layout.

If this forum wishes to remain with a decent photography section it needs to sort it's act out and pronto. As far as it seems to me no matter how hard I try to work around this forums convoluted method for satisfactorily embedding it never works anyway.

I totally understand the 1280px max size and the 300kb max size, I think they are perfect.

However if I can't display an image within those parameters in the way I want to see it displayed then I'm sorry but your not going to see many image posts from me and hence many other posts either. If you look at my posting history you will notice that my other posts are generally high around periods I have posted images and low among others. More and more recently I struggle to put up the images I have taken due to all the time it needs to hand write the tags and then when I find that time wasted I just don't know why I bother.


I hope it gets sorted for the sake of the forum.

It's a shame that you feel this way. At the moment I don't have plans to change the way images are handled, though I am always open to good ideas. 1280px on images would crush the display of the forums for the majority of people viewing.

I think that Ally has said what many of us are thinking, only he has put in good technical detail the sums it all up.

As said, others have raised the issue, but nothing has been done to resolve it.

We all know and appreciate the high quality of input, both in terms on images and advice, that Ally has provided over a period of time. The fact that such a well respected member has voiced his concern so well should not go unheard or brushed under the carpet.

I have noticed that other well respected and established members (you know who you are) contributions have lessened immensely over recent months. It would be interesting to hear their take on the matter and whether it too is affecting their willingness to partake.

In my experience, posting images has always been somewhat "fiddly" (maybe its just me), but with the recent restrictions "Fiddly" has become more "pain in the arse".

I can honestly say that as far as forums are concerned, this is THE one that I have learnt the art of photography from, and most certainly the ONLY one that I try and take an active role in. It would be an awful shame that if, through restrictions, we lose a whole bunch of knowledgeable and inspirational contributors. Contributors who helped so much in making this forum the one that it is. Or should that read the forum that it used to be.
Well it's great to hear that you prefer to post here, and your membership is appreciated. As I say, I'll do what I can to accommodate your needs, but we have to consider the whole community.

I hadn't seen that actually. I suppose it does make things abit clearer in terms that there are now new guidelines. I wasn't aware of this. However the thread does seem interesting in that the poll results were effectively ignored...
That poll should never have been posted, I'm afraid, as it gave the impression that wide options were available, and nothing over 800px ever was.
I understand Stuarts point about him choosing 800px width. It means that the entire AVForums is viewable without any scrolling at all on a 1024px width screen.
No, actually, when all the other elements of the forum are displayed, 800px is the maximum width for 1280px width screens.
The major elements of the screen which eat into the extra 480 pixels are the post info column (typically 185px) and the right-hand skyscraper advert (160px). And then we have the various spacers and the scroll bar which eat up most of what's left. I did try 900px, but that is too wide.

Different users obviously use this site in different ways but I don't generally like having to click through images to larger versions and in terms of my photo's that is not an option as I don't let larger sizes of my images available through flickr due to a number of copyright infringements. In a way this was giving something a little extra to AVForums users, that is a chance to see my images larger than my flickr contacts can.
Let me look into this and see if we can have an image hosting solution other than in posts.

AVForums isn't the only photography forum I use but it in the one that I post in most and by a massive margin at that. However I do post occasional images on other forums and I wish to do that at a size around 950px to then post on AVForums aswell requires me to re-edit the images to 800px just so I can post it on here. Basically its just becoming so much more time and effort to post on here, and I believe all that time and effort is unnecessary or it should be. From the time to re-edit, re-host, re-link and then the time to click on others images to get a decent size it all adds up to time I just don't have to, what I would class as, waste.

In the style of Duncan Bannatyne: "For that reason, I'm out"

Allymac - i you are indeed leaving that is very sad, your landscapes are amongst the best photo's on here.

Bill
Gotta say that the photos people share on here are totally awe inspiring.
The last thing I want to do is alienate anyone. It doesn't make sense at all. But people also find wide images screw up their display and so I'm kind of piggy in the middle having to compromise.
It's a case of not being able to please all the people all the time, but I'm still trying.
 

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Different users obviously use this site in different ways but I don't generally like having to click through images to larger versions and in terms of my photo's that is not an option as I don't let larger sizes of my images available through flickr due to a number of copyright infringements. In a way this was giving something a little extra to AVForums users, that is a chance to see my images larger than my flickr contacts can.

AVForums isn't the only photography forum I use but it in the one that I post in most and by a massive margin at that. However I do post occasional images on other forums and I wish to do that at a size around 950px to then post on AVForums aswell requires me to re-edit the images to 800px just so I can post it on here. Basically its just becoming so much more time and effort to post on here, and I believe all that time and effort is unnecessary or it should be. From the time to re-edit, re-host, re-link and then the time to click on others images to get a decent size it all adds up to time I just don't have to, what I would class as, waste.

I don't quite understand why you can't link to larger images. If 800px looks rubbish, use something smaller for a thumbnail and link to the 950px image externally.

Although, of course, you are entitled to complain about the 800px limit, you've got to see it from the mods / forum operators pov. A bit of inconvenience for you as one member on the odd occasion that you post a picture doesn't weigh very heavily against the day to day running of a forum with 300,000 members and about 100 sub-forums.
 
Ok here is a possible solution (I have my fingers crossed).
I have removed the image dimensions limit on album photos.
Would this work for you?
Couldn't you use this instead of flickr?

And then you could display the image in the post by linking to the image in your album.
It would be resized in the post, but clicking on it would open up the one in your album.

Yes....?
 
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Ok here is a possible solution (I have my fingers crossed).
I have removed the image dimensions limit on album photos. There is a file size limit of 300k.
Would this work for you?
Couldn't you use this instead of flickr?

And then you could display the image in the post by linking to the image in your album.
It would be resized in the post, but clicking on it would open up the one in your album.

Yes....?

Without meaning to sound ungrateful, the problem with this forums step back in the resolution limit is that it means I have to host multiple versions aleady. I wouldn't be interested in having to host another version on here and as it's scaled in the post anyway it doesn't really solve the problem. When your browsing through picture threads with 3 or 4 or more images it's just too time consumin to clcik through each one to see how it is meant to be displayed.


I am grateful of your reply, and as I said I do understand your reasons, however I don't think the they are necceary.

As I said I quite often use a resolution of 1024x768 to browse theses forums so any chnages I am suggesting will effect me the most but I believe and my experience of the resolution in the past is that the limit should be 1010px maximum. A picture upto that resolution means that all posts can be read on a 1024px screen with a need to scroll only if you want to read the posters name.


The 800px limit wouldn't be such a problem if it had always remained as such. But as it was increased I spent a lot of my time re-doing actions (which allow me to resize, border, sharpen and add text all in the one click) to make use of the new available sizes. The action I made for my panorama's took over an hour to perfect and now you you say I have to re-do it because of the decrease in image size limit. Panorama's especially need to be just that little bit larger and I thought they worked perfectly at that size. I'd certainly received no complaints that they were too big but if I only display flickr size I'd had a number of complaints on there that they were too small. See thread

I don't understand how you say the imglink worksaround should never have been implemented? To me, althought it was inconvenient, it worked perfectly (except that it kept getting cancelled etc). It allowed users in the know (mainly those in the DP section) to post images still within the guidlines of the forum (1280px 300kb) but meant that the average joe punter who was just posting an image of his plasma etc could do so and the resizing wouldn't matter and would make the entire width of the forums viewable wihout scrolling, which is good. So I think it worked well.


I know we're just a small section of a very large forum but if there was someway we could embedd images in posts upto 1010px width, and the change was permanent and not always chopping and changing then I think we would be largely satisfied.

BTW you might be interested to know that to view that screen grab took me 3 clicks. That's a lot!! And i'd much rather have to scroll occasionaly than have to click 3 times to view each picture and then a fourth to close that window.
 
Images in your photo albums are not resized. Does that not allow you the latitude you need? Post the images in your album and then link to them from the posts?
When you view an uploaded image in your album, it even gives you the img BB code you need to put it in a post.

Test:

 
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73267-albums435-picture1995.jpg
 
Looks like mines been scaled to 800px, as has yours.
 
In the post, yes, but not in the album
 
In the post, yes, but not in the album

True but this forum is image intensive and very often posts will have 5 images in them sometimes upto 11 or so.

Now it's 2 clicks to view each image and then another to close the browser so on a thread with 5 images that 15clicks and then also the individual loading time for each image.

You look at a couple of threads and it soon adds up. The other problem with clicking is that it removes you from the thread. I often post camera info below the image so people can see the both the image and info and compare them.


I use 1024px about 50% of the time and i'd prefer to scroll than click, click, click, click, click, click just to see 2 images.
 
allymac123 Speaking as somebody who does admire your work, I would be happier to do a few more clicks rather than not see your work. Hopefully you will accept that Stuart has come up with a usable, if not ideal for you, solution and continue to give others like me something to learn from and aspire to.
 
allymac123 speaking as somebody who does admire your work, i would be happier to do a few more clicks rather than not see your work. Hopefully you will accept that stuart has come up with a usable, if not ideal for you, solution and continue to give others like me something to learn from and aspire to.

+1 :smashin:
 
allymac123 Speaking as somebody who does admire your work, I would be happier to do a few more clicks rather than not see your work. Hopefully you will accept that Stuart has come up with a usable, if not ideal for you, solution and continue to give others like me something to learn from and aspire to.
+2

I had even asked in a past thread , a bit of the thought processes you have before the shutter clicks, as Ive yet to see anything you've posted which is not excellent
In short, even if it means you post 3 when you would post 5, I would rather that than see you .. " out"
Despite its "shortcomings" you will agree that you are not only admired and respected for your output here , but the place is in general very friendly
And Stuart ( in trying to please everybody) has to make some pragmatic decisions ( Of course he can , and has spoken for himself) but definitely no anti-photography sentiment whatsoever

It may not be ideal but Im hoping that you stay around and keep going with it:thumbsup::hiya:
 
+3

That said, I *think* I know where Ally is coming from (apologies in advance if I've got this wrong)......

Some people take huge pride in their work and rightly so. They like to see it displayed publically as it should be in all its glory. They don't like to see their work degraded by resizing software which probably doesn't do the artwork justice. Perhaps it isn't so much the hassle of linking to full size images but more a case of not liking seeing the work downsized at all and also not liking having to make people click-through to see the work as it should be.

To be fair to Stuart I think he is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Evidently there are a significant number of users of avforums (as a whole) for whom allowing larger pics messes things up. Probably most of us here in the photography section would be happy to allow larger pics, but we represent a small percentage of all the users.

It would be fantastic if there could be one rule for us and another for everyone else, but I guess that just isn't possible. As such I think we have to accept the limitations of the forum as it is and try to work as best we can in the circumstances.

Ally I really hope we don't lose you or anyone else for that matter. FWIW I would really prefer to see your pics downsized and click to full size than not at all. For me that's not a hassle.

Cheers,

John
 
I know I don't post a lot but I do view on a daily basis and I can say that this forum has changed a lot over the previous year mainly with the more 'distinguished' members/photographers going to other forums.

I know people come and go and that new people give a breath of fresh air but I'm sure the members here would like certain people to still post here as their photos gave inspiration and their advice was well appreciated.

I'll probably get shot for this but here are a few comments I found after a quick search else where

Found this site through the AVforums and really liking it...
so i decided to join up here after it was mentioned on AVForums - i hope i made the right choice!
Not happy with AVforums anymore. a few to many thought police
used to go to AV but got fed up ages ago
And god help you if you disagree with someone "established"
Sounds a bit like AVFORUMS then.
After stumbling onto this site from AVForums (i'm a gadget freak!!) this forum based site looks like the proverbial dogs *&%$ for all things photography

Hopefully people here are big enough to realise that I have posted the above to try and show what has been said on another photography forum rather than saying that I shouldn't have posted it!

That's all I'm going to say though because I've been accused in the past of moaning and not having being a more prominent poster. So hopefully the views of every member on this site will be listened too because you can't have an attitude where only the more prolific posters can make comments on the site as the site, as I said should be for everyone. Which sort of relates to a comment earlier in the thread about opinions being ignored.

Hard hat goes on and taking cover under the table :D
 

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