"Download time - Mick Farnworth's Painting Guides" Topic

Dear everybody,

Recently, I have had some criticism that the quality of pictures in my painting guides (Artizan and Wargames Factory) is poor.
link
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The reason is partly because I have shrunk the files to between 250 and 500 Kb so that they download in seconds. Am I being old fashioned about minimising file sizes?

Questions
1. Would you rather have slower downloads and better pictures?

2. How fast are your downloads? – at home I get 40 Kb per second on downloads, at work much faster.

3. What is the limit? Would you download a 1 meg file?

Regards
Mick

1. Better pictures but maybe less if they take too long?

2. No idea sorry.

3. yep.

Michael.

Best possible pics for painting guides. Maybe post a set with smaller pics for the broadband challenged.

John

If you have already done smaller file size ones, then post both.

A 1 meg file really doesn't sound too big at all.

What John said!!

Dennis

1. Yes.

2. Fast, apparently. Less than two seconds for the 366KB WF Celts article to load, once I said yes.

3. Yes.

Allen

the artizan guides work for me as they are. great pieces of work to get it all in one place for free.

Thanks everybody.
OK, after only one hour, opinions are already quite clear.
I will work on better quality pictures for future guides.

Please keep the comments coming. I would like to know what download speeds people have at home.

Mick

People with highspeed will be anywhere 125-1800 KB/s or 1-15 mb/s

Files on your computer are listed as bytes (big B), internet speeds advertised as bits (little b). A byte is 8 times as big as a bit. The window you get when you download something in IE is bytes.

Anyway, while a fast website is important it is done through efficient code. The content itself should be of high quality as the expense of speed.

Files of 6-8 MB are no big deal here (cable service). However, make sure that you're not making the pictures needlessly large for print or screen consumption. What image format were you using?

Dear Bobstro,

I am using jpeg as it is the easiers format to produce small files.

Dear Coyote
Thanks for the tip with b and B. Actually things are much faster than I thought.

Regards
Mick

1. Yes

2. fast

3. Yes and more

Agree with all the above, but basically greatly appreciate the guidance and advice, especially the price

Fallshirmjager Guide is now on-line at Artizan and Crusader – updated with better pictures.

You have painting guides? Cool!

1. Slower downloads with better pictures, yes, please. For instance, I downloaded Farnworth_Celts.pdf, which is 366KB. On my laptop screen, at 100% size (so no zooming), the pictures are noticeably blocky.

2. Too quick to measure. I'm on a corporate broadband connection, the file was down in seconds before I could even look to check status. At a slower rate, it would still go quickly.

3. I'm not sure there is a limit. I've installed games that have to download over 1 GB. You arrange your day so you can start the install, go to bed, check it in the morning. Realistically though, maybe 3 MB, which is 10 times as big?

I'd suggest you approach this more as a quality issue though. Print your guides out on a laser quality printer (300 dpi or better). Are the pictures legible or yucky? If yucky, increase quality until they look like pictures. Not everyone will print them, but those who go to the trouble should get something for it.

Any guide that is too big to download can be broken into 2 (or more) sections.

1. Better Pictures is a *MUST* for a painting guide. Small picture files are OK for use on the website, but not in the printed material.

2. It's a broadband connection at home (150MB compressed size in about 5 minutes).

3. Use a separate file-compression format for your download. Don't scrimp on the image quality for the download file, write the guide, save it as a pdf, then make the entire file a zip or rar for downloading.

Thanks everybody.

Dear Forum,

Searching for feedback on what are the better digital cameras to own, especially for photographing 15mm scale painted miniatures?

What are the essential camera features to look for, as far as storing and transferring images to your computer, in order to transmit those images via e-mail or to a website for sharing photo images, such as TMP?

Sincerely,
Wayne

Those links seem fine on my wife's Mac. Download fast enough but better pictures could improve the guides. The pictures work for me but those are not my AOIs so I may be less picky then if it was something I was going to paint.

Awesome sharing of pictures and colors used.

Muchas Gracias,

Glenn

Dear Warbeads,

Here are te latest guides on Crusader – these already have improved photos.
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Dear Wayneempire,

I use a Canon Digital EOS 1000D SLR. I put it on a tripod and the figures on a white melamine board. I set the shutter to 1/50 and therefore get the best depth of field that I can. I usually photograph outside but screened from the sunlight to reduced shadows. I then brighten and shrink the pictures in Microsoft Office Picture Manager

Mick