How many CMON Contest#3 Entries are In?

[Nailpainter2003]

And now there is none

Well, again I say to all who entered, much good luck. It was a difficult piece to paint. I\'ve noticed some very strange voting and would like to say to everyone, please vote fairly and take ALL entries into consideration.

For some reason, my entry which I posted on 6/14, was pulled and when I checked to see why, there was noted only \'Reported\'. I wish I had been notified first as to the problem, perhaps it was the size, as I\'m still having difficulty compressing the file to an acceptable level. If I had known, I may have had time to fix the problem before the deadline. I spent a considerable amount of time sculpting and painting this piece for my first entry into any contest and I am sad and disillusioned by this.

Still, I\'ve seen some wonderful entries, inspiring pieces and alot of effort displayed. Great job, everyone who entered!!
Faye

 

[dauber22]

Originally posted by Nailpainter2003
For some reason, my entry which I posted on 6/14, was pulled and when I checked to see why, there was noted only \'Reported\'. I wish I had been notified first as to the problem, perhaps it was the size, as I\'m still having difficulty compressing the file to an acceptable level. If I had known, I may have had time to fix the problem before the deadline. I spent a considerable amount of time sculpting and painting this piece for my first entry into any contest and I am sad and disillusioned by this.

This absolutely sucks, Faye It wasn\'t pulled immediately because it was up long enough for me to see it and vote on it the other day. It was, as always , a beautiful piece in your distinct, unmistakeable style. I think you should PM borg or even Chern Ann to see if they can give you an answer. I\'d hate to see it all be over something easily remedied.

 

[KatieG]

The \"reported\" status comes from having it on your own site. At some point, your site went down (or exceeeded its bandwidth which could be because it gets more looks than minis in the regular rotation) and therefore the mini was removed because what\'s the point of voting on a mini people can\'t see because your site won\'t let them download it. I can\'t stress this enough, ALWAYS upload pictures to the site. Compress it to 100kb, its not that hard, nor does it make a huge difference in quality of the picture. At least it doesn\'t if you have a decent compression program. I\'ve put things up that were 4 different angles and compressed to 100kb (and 600 pixels wide) and they look fine. See if they won\'t let you reenter by uploading your pic to the site.
--Katie G.
P.S. what program are you using for photoediting? Any decent program should allow for compressing to a reasonable size. Photoshop is a good (and easy to do) one, as is the free program GIMP which a lot of people use, though I have no experience with that one.

 

[Nailpainter2003]

RE Compression

Originally posted by KatieG
The \"reported\" status comes from having it on your own site. At some point, your site went down (or exceeeded its bandwidth which could be because it gets more looks than minis in the regular rotation) and therefore the mini was removed because what\'s the point of voting on a mini people can\'t see because your site won\'t let them download it. I can\'t stress this enough, ALWAYS upload pictures to the site. Compress it to 100kb, its not that hard, nor does it make a huge difference in quality of the picture. At least it doesn\'t if you have a decent compression program. I\'ve put things up that were 4 different angles and compressed to 100kb (and 600 pixels wide) and they look fine. See if they won\'t let you reenter by uploading your pic to the site.
--Katie G.
P.S. what program are you using for photoediting? Any decent program should allow for compressing to a reasonable size. Photoshop is a good (and easy to do) one, as is the free program GIMP which a lot of people use, though I have no experience with that one.

Katie, thanks for responding. I am using Adobe Photoshop and save my pics usually around 600px X 400+.....My problem is in compressing the file size. I have seen others with photos 600px wide X 800px high and only having a file size of 47 kb. How is this done? Invariably , my file size is always well over 100kb. How do you compress it to an acceptable size?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Faye

 

[Dragonsreach]

+.....My problem is in compressing the file size. I have seen others with photos 600px wide X 800px high and only having a file size of 47 kb. How is this done? Invariably , my file size is always well over 100kb. How do you compress it to an acceptable size?

Eeeeeek lotsa questions, but here goes:-
First make sure that you are shooting at about 600dpi. (It\'s easier to lose size with big pictures,than to get it back.)

Always save as Jpeg\'s and when you open the original you should save it as a different name, which should allow you the option of choosing the size of file.
If you set this to 5 (Medium) it will be a start on the reduction of the file size.

Crop out any unwanted background and as close to the figure as possible without making it looked \"squashed\".

Try to resize the image to about 500 pixcels wide. This is about the average I\'ve been posting my stuff up here.

Hopefully these suggestions might help.

If you want to you could email me the file Faye, and I\'ll see what I can do to help. Da Boss will watch and take notes.

 

[KatieG]

Originally posted by Nailpainter2003

Katie, thanks for responding. I am using Adobe Photoshop and save my pics usually around 600px X 400+.....My problem is in compressing the file size. I have seen others with photos 600px wide X 800px high and only having a file size of 47 kb. How is this done? Invariably , my file size is always well over 100kb. How do you compress it to an acceptable size?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Faye

OK, here\'s what I do, I\'m using Photoshop 6.0, but this should be applicable to all later versions as well. If you have an earlier version it might be harder, you might have to save at different levels of compression and then see what the file sizes are later.

Open picture in photoshop. Crop, color correct. Save (my camera already saves as a jpeg). Resize to 600 pixels wide. Pt several pics together in a new window if necessary. Save as: file type: jpeg. Rename the file so that I know it\'s for CMON (also, I\'ll still have the original file unmodified). It\'ll ask for compression. There\'s a sliding bar from 1-12. I take it to the highest number that\'s 100kb or less (it\'s in the save window, before you save it\'ll tell you how big the file will be, but this is only on 6.0 or newer versions of photoshop). For single shots this is usually 7-8. For multiple shots I\'ve gone as low as 4-5 and not seen any difference from one saved at high compression. I suspect this is due to the fact that web pics can at most be seen at 72 pixels/inch and therefore you really have to compress the heck out of it before it becomes noticeable. I\'ve done things for eBay auctions (comic books) that were at 2 and I couldn\'t tell the difference. Hope this helps!
--Katie G.

 

[Nailpainter2003]

Thanks everybody, and....

...borg has allowed me to re-submit my entry. The photo suffered from too much compression and sizing, but it\'s going back up.

Thank you Katie, DR , chuckchops(cute name) and dauber22. I finally realized that my version of adobe photoshop is not as new as yours, Katie, and I was not being given an option for image quality/compression level....thus making it difficult to find and utilize. I think it\'s okay now, but entirely frustrating to figure out.

Thank again, you wonderful group of people!!
Faye
P.S. You can find her here#58050:
Sister Christana

 

[U4-Welcome]

Makes me wonder just how many of us photoshop users actually own a licence for it .

Good job on Christina, Faye, (love the tartan) and I need to learn how to build bases like you do them .

 

[KatieG]

Originally posted by Nailpainter2003
...borg has allowed me to re-submit my entry. The photo suffered from too much compression and sizing, but it\'s going back up.

Thank you Katie, DR , chuckchops(cute name) and dauber22. I finally realized that my version of adobe photoshop is not as new as yours, Katie, and I was not being given an option for image quality/compression level....thus making it difficult to find and utilize. I think it\'s okay now, but entirely frustrating to figure out.

Thank again, you wonderful group of people!!
Faye
P.S. You can find her here#58050:
Sister Christana

Faye,
Are you saving as a jpeg? Other file types may not have the option for compression, but I am pretty sure even earlier versions of photoshop let you save at different compression levels if you saved as a jpeg. You just can\'t see the file size before you save like you can for the newer versions. I used to have photoshop 4.0 - actually still do somewhere, and I thought I could still save at different levels on it.
--Katie G.

 

[Klute]

I use psp8 and it has an optimiser for saving jpegs.It runs real time and has a window to preview the results before you save it and tells you the filesize real time too.Very handy.I try to get my images 4-500 pixels wide by whatever depth.

 

[Trevor]

version 5 certainly lets you choose the jpeg quality level.

You have to flatten the image, then you get the option to save as jpeg, then after you save it asks you what compression level, 1-10, 5 seems to be about right, less for big pics.