new thread
I just have a general question as I was going to post a pic but as it turned out the file was too large and was rejected.I remembered from a while ago somewhere in the FAQ section there was a resizing utility that did something to you pic to make it correct to meet the file size requirements.I haven't used it in awhile but when I went to look for it I couldn't find the link.So my question.."Where's Bill's resizing utility?"Thanks for any info on this issue.Mark
yes bill still has it as I used it just a few days ago for my update and it worked great but off hand I can't remember the url, however he will probably post it
Irfanview works well, is easy and free also. Can be googled.
All of these programs involve being comfortable with doing technical stuff. The idea of my photo resize utility was to make that not necessary. As that utility now sits, it just takes your photo in, shrinks it into a 400x400 pixel box, and e-mails it right back to you. I may add "choosing different sizes for the box" and doing 90 degree rotates to the utility. That is in my mind. On the other hand, I don't want to add too much to it, because I want it to remain simple. Some people who are on the Internet are not particularly geeky, and I see it as an obligation for those of us in the hobby who are blessed with such skills, to each in his own way find ways to help those guys out. The photo resize utility is one of my endeavors in that regard. "Helping others out" is a value I brought from the ham radio hobby which preceded this one, and I just can't shake it. [grin]
Bill
hi Bill's resize utility RULZ, mainly because it's fast, gets the job done and is uncomplicated by zillions of microsoft style options.
I would even advocate including it in the photo upload part of the mlhh scripting, something like:
If ([jpg file size] > N Kb) { send file to resize subroutine }
upload [jpg.resized]
except that there might be some objections.
However I must say some of the photos are pretty big and/or numerous and take a bit of time on my slow DSL connection.
The same routines run on MLHH when messages are posted with an uploaded photo. The only differences at the moment are that my resize utility takes in 4 meg files instead of 2 megs, and it resizes photos to a smaller width. If a photo uploaded to MLHH is small enough, it is not altered by the internal resizer, and it is posted as submitted.
One consideration with both programs is there is a maximum time of 120 seconds that they will run. If a user has a dialup connection and a large photo, he may "time out" and get a geeky "configuration error" from the web server. I've held the MLHH limit at 2 megs because a crash when one has composed a message is very irritating. It is not such a big deal if you are just uploading a photo by itself, so I have the resizer on my site set to handle 4 meg photos.
This is also why we can't have upload of more than one photo in MLHH posts. To stay under the 2 meg limit, we could have two photos with a limit of 1 meg each, four photos with a limit of 500k, etc., but the present setup allows the greatest access of the feature to users. They can easily make a second post if they have two pictures to upload.
Bill
If you want a general image processing utility, look at ImageMagick. There are versions for all the popular operating systems, so those of you running the inferior Windows systems can still use it. It's open source software with a GPL compatible license ... you can *LEGALLY* download it, use it, give it away - or even sell it if you wish.
ImageMagick Website