Photo montage going crappy
- Thread starter cleen X
- Start date
majestic0110
Member
ditto
I am having the same issues myself !
I am having the same issues myself !
green stuff
Active member
What size (in pixels) is it? Also, posting your pic here would help to have a better idea on what layout you\'re aiming for and if there\'s another way of presenting your mini to gain on space 
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cleen X
New member
I\'ll have to do it later, it\'s about 10 photos, all of which have already been manipulated and have had there quality changed to a 100kb, they all look very nice! Then I copy and paste them one by one onto a canvas of 600x2606 pixels, the reason it is 2606 in height is because that how tall it needed to be to get all the pictures in. 600 pixels in width because it\'s the widest CMON allows, if it\'s bigger it will change, all the photos are also editet to be 600 pixels wide so they will fit on the canvas, maybe I use t many photos? It\'s very frustrating!
majestic0110
Member
Mine was about the same as CLeenx\'s. I tried to \"flatten image\" too as I was told that would reduce the size, but it didn\'t really. Also, saving the quality at 85% was a tip I got from an article on CMON, but the degradation in quality was quite bad !
Avelorn
Sven Jonsson
Ok. I\'m not sure I understand here. The size-limit for uploading is 200kb in total. What is the size of the entire compilation in other words what is the size of the image you upload to cmon? If we find it to be much above 200kb we moderators in most cases reduce the size by making it smaller/or compressing it harder. Both means that the quality of the image deteriorates. 10 different views sounds like you\'ll have a hard time compressing to 200kb.
However, I don\'t think you need to compress each image, just make a montage from the uncompressed pictures and then reduce the size of the entire montage to 600pixels wide and compress the file when you save it to around 200kb and then upload here.
However, I don\'t think you need to compress each image, just make a montage from the uncompressed pictures and then reduce the size of the entire montage to 600pixels wide and compress the file when you save it to around 200kb and then upload here.
majestic0110
Member
Yeah the problem I am facing (and Cleenx I think) is that we have reduced the width to 600 pixels, then saved the image - to find out that the size is about 900kb. Only through changing the quality percentage slider (compression) to low have I been able to achieve the 200kb limit, or by using only two pictures.
majestic0110
Member
ok, it might be just that Avelorn. Thanks for the ideas and help there, I will experiment and let you all know if I find out anything useful.
War Griffon
New member
It sounds like a very excessive amount of photos to put into a montarge???
When I did the GIMP article I only did the montarge with 2 photos and didn\'t encounter any problems. It could be that because you are using so many photos you are loosing all the details when shrinking the size down.
Jpeg is not a fantastic file format when it comes to handling photos as every modification you make then Jpeg will lose some information from the origonal photo.
Are you saving the photos for Web use before making them into a montarge?
Try with just a few photos and see if you get the same results?
It was pointed out to me that there is a few issues with GIMP when using 2.6.6. with Windows Vista in that is crashes when you try to do anything but it works fine with version 2.4.
When I did the GIMP article I only did the montarge with 2 photos and didn\'t encounter any problems. It could be that because you are using so many photos you are loosing all the details when shrinking the size down.
Jpeg is not a fantastic file format when it comes to handling photos as every modification you make then Jpeg will lose some information from the origonal photo.
Are you saving the photos for Web use before making them into a montarge?
Try with just a few photos and see if you get the same results?
It was pointed out to me that there is a few issues with GIMP when using 2.6.6. with Windows Vista in that is crashes when you try to do anything but it works fine with version 2.4.
majestic0110
Member
Hi there War Griffon, the article you wrote was great, the trouble I am having is that I wanted 4 images on the montage then saved it at 100% quality (dimensions 598x2000), and the size was 706kb. Wierd or am I doing something wrong? When saved at 85% the size is 223kb but the quality is noticably poorer. Any thoughts ?
War Griffon
New member
Did you save each individual photo prior to making them into a montage or did you go from one step straight through to the other?
majestic0110
Member
I scaled them individually, saved them and then I proceeded to add them to the montage, I did not do anything else (i.e. adjust levels etc.), just scaled them. I then opened a new JPEG painted the background black and copy + pasted the pictures to this new montage. Is that the right thing to do ?
green stuff
Active member
Exactly! A front and back shot usually suffice. Plus if it\'s just for one human-size mini, 600 pixels wide is generally too much. 450-500 is plenty enough IMO.
If it\'s for a squad, then consider a group shot and then one or two shots of the best models of the squad.
War Griffon
New member
I have just had a play with 4 photos of Libby that I have, I lost the origonals due to a computer crash (thanks XP service pack:cussing: ) so they were only about 60Kb each but just quickly plonking all four onto a blank canvas and then flattening the image and scaling when I saved the file I didn\'t have any problems.
You say you added them to a new canvas which you put a black background on black background?
I am confused now, did you crop them out of the origonal and then into the montage to lose the other background?
Painting the canvas black seems a strange way to go about things, or do you mean you selected the blank canva colour as black?
You say you added them to a new canvas which you put a black background on black background?
I am confused now, did you crop them out of the origonal and then into the montage to lose the other background?
Painting the canvas black seems a strange way to go about things, or do you mean you selected the blank canva colour as black?
majestic0110
Member
What I did was :
Once copied from digital camera I scaled each picture down (from about 3264x2448) to facilitate the 600 px width restriction, then I opened a new canvas, bucket filled the canvas black instead of white, then copied the scaled down images to the black canvas. The photo is of a diorama, so there actually was no other background (if you know what I mean) - the picture can be found here - link . You see, there were two other photos I\'d really like to have added to that montage, but the file size was getting too large :-/
Once copied from digital camera I scaled each picture down (from about 3264x2448) to facilitate the 600 px width restriction, then I opened a new canvas, bucket filled the canvas black instead of white, then copied the scaled down images to the black canvas. The photo is of a diorama, so there actually was no other background (if you know what I mean) - the picture can be found here - link . You see, there were two other photos I\'d really like to have added to that montage, but the file size was getting too large :-/
I know nothing of GIMP and its compression algorithms, but that image you linked to should not prove any difficulties to get way below 200kb. I can usually fit 3-5 photos on my montages (depending on width) and save to below 200kb without too much loss in quality. I\'m using PS with its save for web function, though.
One thing to consider, is that if you save the individual pictures before making the montage, DON\'T compress them! Save them in highest quality and do all compression in one go. You don\'t want compression of already compressed images.
One thing to consider, is that if you save the individual pictures before making the montage, DON\'T compress them! Save them in highest quality and do all compression in one go. You don\'t want compression of already compressed images.
majestic0110
Member
Yeah, that\'s what I would have thought too Ritual, it just seems very odd. Thanks for ideas and help everyone. It really does seem odd. I have not had trouble in the past with GIMP either. ???
