How to make peace with photo bucket

[Pete123]

Someone recently started a thread on trouble with Photo Bucket.  I was having significant trouble as well and figured out what to do.  Instead of adding to that thread I started a new one in hopes that all who are feeling Photo Bucket pain will see this.

 

The symptoms were that it took for ever to upload, move around the site and TGO often rejected pics I had worked so hard to post.

 

Turns out the problem was that the size of the picture files were too big.  Our cell phone cameras are fairly high def, which makes the files big.

 

Once I reduced the size of the pics all troubles went away.

 

Not sure how to reduce them?  Fear not, here are links for PC and Mac.  I have a Mac, so I know these work.

 

For a Mac:

 

Get the photo on your Mac.

If you use Mac's Photos option you can click on the photo, click edit, and crop and or improve the pic.

You can also go into Finder, find the pic, double click on it and it will open in Preview.

Go File, Export.  The next screen has a place at the bottom where you can reduce the file size.  Reduce it do to around 75-150 Kb.

 

For a pc

 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/resize-a-picture-using-paint

 

I hope this helps.  Post any Mac questions and I'll try to help.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Pete123

[Hozzie]

Not to put down photobucket, but Picasaweb will take any size. I would find it very annoying to have to manually reduce every photo I wanted to upload. I think Picasa may automatically reduce the size a little, but upload speeds are very good.

Not trying to make anyone change, but that seems like a pretty annoying issue considering every photo is large today with the quality of devices we have.

[Pete123]

Hozzie,

 

You make a good point.  Re-sizing every pic is a pain.  

 

Photobucket will take large pics, though it slows everything down - a lot.  Does Picasaweb handle the big ones more effectively?  Another problem I had was that the TGO website wouldn't accept links for the big pics.  

 

The point I'm trying to make is that I'll give Picasa a shot.

[peejman]

Smugmug also takes any size pic and provides a link to several different reduced size versions for posting...

 

I can send anyone a smugmug discount code if interested. 

 

 

[Lumber_Jack]

Smugmug also takes any size pic and provides a link to several different reduced size versions for posting...

I can send anyone a smugmug discount code if interested.

Is it worth paying for?

[KaNaPaPi]

I use tinypic.com

[Hozzie]

Hozzie,

 

You make a good point.  Re-sizing every pic is a pain.  

 

Photobucket will take large pics, though it slows everything down - a lot.  Does Picasaweb handle the big ones more effectively?  Another problem I had was that the TGO website wouldn't accept links for the big pics.  

 

The point I'm trying to make is that I'll give Picasa a shot.

 

I have not used Photobucket, but I can say that I have used Picasaweb for a long time with no real complaints.  As with anything, you have to learn how to use it, but it is pretty easy after you use it a bit.  I wouldn't pay for a service as I don't see what it could do that Picasaweb can't. 

[peejman]

Is it worth paying for?

 

 

It is to me.  I use it as a photo vault.  I put any photo of consequence on there so it's backed up (on 4 different servers in 4 different cities) should my hard drive fail.  The service has reasonable security features, they make really good prints (calenders, cards, etc.), and it's pretty easy to use.  $40/yr is cheap insurance and WAY cheaper than data recovery from a failed drive. All the rest is a bonus to me. 

 

20% off referral code (for you, me, and anyone else that's interested...)  https://secure.smugmug.com/signup?Coupon=VlcPcQWTe7dG6

[bersaguy]

i have been using Photo Gallery for about 10 years now and never had an issue with posting a picture on any websites as of yet, "BUT" with that said I don't use phone camera's either so that may be why I have not had any issues.......... :2cents:

[seez52]

I absolutely hate photobucket.

[JeffL]

I like http://www.imgur.com myself.

[Dane]

I've used hunt101.com for over ten years. I can upload any size and it will give me a url for different sizes depending on what size I want to post. And it is free.

[DaveTN]

I've never had a problem posting pictures with Photobucket on this forum.

[Jonnin]

most devices let you adjust the image size so you don't take 10MB ++  images per click.   Some more dumbed down devices refer to this as image quality (this isn't precisely wrong, but its not helpful to the user either).    Very few images should use up more than 1/2 a megabyte for your general public show and tell when in compressed format (jpg, usually).   Only if you NEED the extreme detail that allows you to count the threads in the clothing of everyone in the group picture should you have a 10-50 MB image.   1-5 MB is good for making an image that you intend to CROP for a high detail of something, for example if you were trying to show a small damage to a gun you were selling -- but you wouldn't post the entire image in that case, just the area of interest.   Another setting that *some* devices have can control the jpeg compression.  This varies from "lossless" (image is NOT damaged) low compression all the way up to pretty high (image is visibly distorted without zooming in).  Middle settings have distortion when zoomed in for normal images (world around us) or a little distortion on specific image types (an image of text on a page, for example, stark changes in color with hard defined edges).   So use a medium to high loss/damage setting for typical pictures of people and nature,  and only use lossless for things with high detail and stark, un-natural color changes (no gradients between colors). 

 

So, as you can see, my approach to fixing the issue is to configure your device differently.   Hope this helps?

Edited October 4, 2015 by Jonnin

[Ted S.]

It's the file size for sure. I can post quite a few photo bucket pics in one reply because of how compressed the file is in photobucket. Mediafire has no compression "issue", but in turn you can post fewer pics per post with mediafire. Quality vs. Quantity is the tradeoff.

 

Note the quality difference:

 

Photobucket:

 

 

Same picture using Mediafire, no compression. Compression kills quality.

 

Edited October 4, 2015 by Ted S.

[Oh Shoot]

It's the file size for sure. I can post quite a few photo bucket pics in one reply because of how compressed the file is in photobucket. Mediafire has no compression "issue", but in turn you can post fewer pics per post with mediafire. Quality vs. Quantity is the tradeoff.

 

Note the quality difference:

 

Photobucket:

 

 

Same picture using Mediafire, no compression. Compression kills quality.

 

 

[digital imaging pedantry]

 

That does seem due to image compression --  image resizing,  if done with effective resampling, will look identical on a given screen to original larger image viewed at same pixel dimensions.  Compression on the other hand is the relative quality of the image at a given pixel size with formats that support it, just as JPEG, due to sampling rate and algorithm used.

 

There is a difference in the quality level of the two images you post, and perhaps that is due to the PB's compression, I dunno, as don't know the history of the image. Are you saying you uploaded the same 4900 pixel image to both places and those are the results with link to the full image size? The reason I ask to confirm is because I don't see that level of compression artifacts in the many PB images posted online.

 

Your two images are simply hugely different in actual pixel dimensions. The Mediafire image is some 4900 pixels across and the PhotoBucket one is about 800. And indeed, the 4900 across pixel Mediafire image has been resampled down to same size as the top image by the forum software.

 

And sure, the whole image must be downloaded to display on screen, so larger ones take more bandwidth and time.

 

Here is an example of common lossy image compression taken to extreme, your original Mediafile image resized to the same 800 pixels but also saved with high compression level in PhotoShop. The main thing lossy compression does is throw out more of the gradations of color in the palette, hence the splotchy artifacts in the solid fields and the aberrations where lines intersect and such (I lightened overall image some so that they show better).

 

But one can resize an image so that it looks identical at screen rez to the same lesser pixel size than that of the larger image. If PB can't do that, then it is indeed a flaw in their process somewhere, as even the TGO forum software does a fine job of downsizing large images without any indication of image corruption.

 

 

I'd experiment some myself, but I don't have an account with any of the online pix services, and don't want to mess with them anyway. For years, I've simply used my webspace on Comcast or my own domain to stash pix. I generally save them at about 1200 pixels across and just let the forums display them at whatever default they choose, and I never see any compression artifacts like any of the above.

 

Btw, Comcast has stated that their free webspace accounts are being nixed, so I guess at some point a lot of my pix will disappear from forums as for whatever reason I've mainly used it for pix (used it for the one above for example),  so will have to start using my domain space exclusively I reckon.

 

[/digital imaging pedantry]

 

- OS

Edited October 4, 2015 by Oh Shoot

[Ted S.]

Yeah OS, it was the same file uploaded to each service. Really good info there, by the way.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I547 using Tapatalk

[Oh Shoot]

Yeah OS, it was the same file uploaded to each service.

 

Then why is you PB 1024 pixels wide in actual form?  (displays as 800px in default TGO view)  What decided to resize to exactly that from the 4900 pixel image you uploaded?

 

Meaning, I see pix with lots of various widths from PB on here, and they don't show any compression artifacts at all? So without looking around, is 1024 pixel width some maximum size that PB will display as a link or something? Or a choice you make onsite there as to what link to choose according to size or something?

 

- OS

Edited October 4, 2015 by Oh Shoot

[Ted S.]

Then why is it 1024 pixels wide in actual form? What decided to resize to exactly that from the 4900 pixel image you uploaded?

 

Meaning, I see pix with lots of various widths from PB on here, and they don't show any compression artifacts at all?

 

- OS

 

I couldn't tell you. The camera that took the photo is 16.1 MP, so it's not like it's one of those Pro DSLRs that take 40+ MP shots. Most of the file sizes are between 2.5-5 MB. I've noticed this on quite a few pictures; the one I posted being the first. Just odd.

[Shepherd Master]

I run all my images through Picasa first for sizing and editing, hosted on PB.......never had a problem. 

 

Size your images outside of PB. 

 

[Jonnin]

jpeg does something a lot more sophisticated but similar to this:

 

imagine an RGB image (3 bytes / pixel, one for red, one for green, and one for blue, your typical 16 million color image).   Say you take each byte and make the least significant bit zero always, this loses data, but its a tiny change, human's cant even see this.  That gets you about 7/8 % compression when you use something like LZW / zip / etc on it.  Now zero out the 2 least significant bits, and its 6/8 % compression, etc.   The more you throw away, the better the compression, and the worse the result, down to keeping 1/8 of the data (zero everything and its near 100% compression and no image data lol).  

 

Jpeg does something similar to that after a complex math transform (discrete cosine wavelet)  so it can throw away the data more cleanly, but this is a rough example of what is going on.  

 

Whatever site presents the image may also be compressing, resizing and messing with it.   The above 2 images look nearly the same to me and the more damage one is perfectly fine for a quick "check out the view from my roof" type social media posting.   The full quality one is not required to see that its a great view.  Also, the sky looks off..  solid color, and solid colors don't mix well with jpg.

Edited October 26, 2015 by Jonnin

[Oh Shoot]

..........Also, the sky looks off..  solid color, and solid colors don't mix well with jpg.

 

Well, a true solid single color isn't affected, but any given patch of sky or most anything else "solid color" in the real world is actually a mix of at the minimum hundreds of hues, and when many of them are resampled into just a few you get the patchwork look.

 

- OS

[xsubsailor]

I use    postimage.org.    I'm not too computer savy so I went with the easiest I could find. Gave up on PB fast.