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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
OT-Wordpress problem
Phil Hawkins, Photographer
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Fresno | ca | usa | Posted: 12:24 AM on 11.23.09 |
->> Blogging seems to be a popular pursuit with members on this board, thus I'm hopeful someone will know the secret to posting sharp, clear vibrant images. Seems like everytime I post an image it's severely degraded from what I know I saved in PS.
I'm probably over sharpening, yet images are dull. Plus, colors are lifeless (yes, I'm saving in sRGB) and cropped to the size of 497 pixels wide... How do you post images in Wordpress so they look decent?
see http://tinyurl.com/yzmthqr |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 2:05 AM on 11.23.09 |
->> Generic form instructions:
First, make sure you're using the latest version of wordpress. (You don't have to worry about this on wordpress.com) - If you're not, you're probably getting hacked very soon! Just one of those things - the bad guys tend to lag just a few months behind.
To get to save for web in Photoshop, use opt-alt-shift-s, or control-alt-shift-s (why would you use a pc?! shame...) - make sure you're scaling/cropping in Photoshop - Wordpress uses the GD image library, which doesn't handle colors or profiling well at all (at least in this case). PS will also compress images a lot better than anything else.
Tight now your smaller images are 130k to 150k - so it will take several minutes to view a post on a 56k modem, or up to 30 seconds on average DSL/cable.
When you're including an image in a post, you can still use the native WP uploader, but you need to make sure it's using the original image (as stated above, it'll kill your image quality)...
To do this, use the "Add Media" button (as usual), then make sure "full size" is checked. Then use the "insert into post" button to do the deed.
WP is also scheduled to release version 2.9 in the next month or so (though they have been behind) - this will likely help things a little, but not nearly as much as doing things in PS will. |
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Phil Hawkins, Photographer
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Fresno | ca | usa | Posted: 4:17 AM on 11.23.09 |
| ->> Thanks, Israel, I am using wordpress.com |
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Mike Anzaldi, Photographer
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Oak Park | IL | USA | Posted: 2:32 PM on 11.23.09 |
->> phil-
i just resize to 10" on the long side, and keep the resolution high (200), like with the newspaper. i also don't compress the image too much (9 or 10) in PS. they look okay. reasonably close, anyway. |
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Baron Sekiya, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Keaau | HI | USA | Posted: 3:11 PM on 11.23.09 |
->> Note that WordPress will resize your images if they are large. If you size and upload your images the exact size that they are to be displayed on your WordPress site (the thumbnail on the post) then it will use the original size and it will look great.
I use a WordPress.org install and I can FTP in and replace the resized thumbnails with reduced images out of Photoshop/Aperture with the same name (they usually add dimensions to the names). That way the images are crystal clear.
Most of the time I don't bother but there are times when it makes a big difference. I replaced the WordPress created thumbnail of this night exposure with my own.
http://www.hawaii247.org/2009/09/18/hawaii-county-fair-lights-up-hilo/ |
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Richard Denham, Photographer
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Toronto/Buffalo/Niagara | On | Canada | Posted: 3:11 PM on 11.23.09 |
->> Phil
1 re size your images to the specific dimensions of the blog, should be easy to figure out.
2 upload them to a gallery somewhere, I use my smugmug account
3 url link the full size image to your blog.
This is exactly how I do it and don't lose any info, colors, etc along the way. Check out my blog herehttp://rickdenham.com/blog/ |
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Brian Smith, Photographer
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Miami Beach | Florida | United States | Posted: 4:38 PM on 11.23.09 |
->> Phil,
You might think you're cropping them to "497 pixels wide" but it sure looks like a resize problem to me. So I grabbed one image at random to check and "Half Dome over the Merced River" is actually 800 px wide but resizing to much smaller.
For best results, you'll want to decide on a width and size everything both horizontal & vertical to that width. Some of the themes let you choose the width. I'm rollin 600 px, but that's just me...Your panos would certainly look better bigger.
Also, those captions are part of the problem. With most themes, even that very slight resize throws off your sharpness. So try to find a theme where that doesn't happen, or else you gotta decide if the caption or sharpnenss is more important. You can always just put the caption as text right below the photo instead of in the caption field.
http://briansmith.com/blog |
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Joey Wilson, Photographer
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Savannah | GA | USA | Posted: 6:21 PM on 11.23.09 |
->> Phil-
Your images look fine, whether viewed on my PC or MAC...especially the Yosemite Valley and Half Dome shots. I've started a blog on Wordpress (just haven't done well to keep it up) and have been very happy with them so far... |
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Phil Hawkins, Photographer
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Fresno | ca | usa | Posted: 8:13 PM on 11.23.09 |
->> Thanks, all...
Brad and Brian, you both have images that look well saturated, sharp and great! I'll dump the caption and see if that helps, although I notice Brad has captions on his shots and they look sharp as ever. Hmmm... |
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Brad Mangin, Photographer
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Pleasanton | CA | USA | Posted: 9:57 PM on 11.23.09 |
->> Phil- my captions are not part of the image files- they are simply text in the caption field like Brian talks about above.
My images are sized a little bigger and I allow Wordpress to shrink them down- but I do enough sharpening, etc. with unsharpen mask in Photoshop to make them look pretty decent once they get published. |
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Mark Sutton, Photographer
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Herndon | VA | USA | Posted: 7:02 AM on 11.24.09 |
->> Phil,
I'm sorry, but I think your shots on your blog are good and I'm looking at them on a 24 inch IMac. I wish they were a little larger. I always love to look at large images especially on this monitor and Brad's shots are awesome.
Mark
http://www.solutionsareus.com |
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Phil Hawkins, Photographer
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Fresno | ca | usa | Posted: 1:24 PM on 11.24.09 |
->> Brad,
I appreciate your input on this; could I trouble you for your unsharp mask settings? Others might find this valuable too...
I also do the captions as part of the caption field in WP. We're both doing about the same thing it would seem, sans the unsharp mask settings.
Gracias! |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 1:28 PM on 11.24.09 |
| ->> I'm not sure if I was quite clear above; the "if you're using wordpress.com" only applied to that paragraph and about upgrading; uploading images sized properly in Photoshop will fix your problem. |
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Craig Kohlruss, Photographer
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Fresno | CA | USA | Posted: 6:50 PM on 11.24.09 |
->> Phil -- don't mean to change the subject -- but make those images bigger!
ck |
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Daniel Malmberg, Photographer
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Huskvarna | Sweden | Sweden | Posted: 7:35 PM on 11.24.09 |
->> For those who are running Wordpress.org, and can install plugins i recommend this plugin:
http://stimuli.ca/lightbox/
It makes it possible to have click-able photos that will be enlarged when clicked on.
Use it for my own blog.
It is also possible to navigate between the photos (when enlarged) with the arrow keys.
You can try it here:
(Texts are in Swedish).
http://photo-it.net/fotoblogg/?p=637
I use it on my own photoblog:
http://photo-it.net/fotoblogg/ |
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Brad Mangin, Photographer
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Pleasanton | CA | USA | Posted: 8:11 PM on 11.24.09 |
->> Good evening Phil,
First off I want to say that this is what works for me and is not gospel :-) We all have our own little nutty formulas and superstitions- this is just one method I use that generally works OK for me.
Before I start putting together a new post on my Wordpress blog I gather the original Canon RAW files of every image I want to work with and open them in Photoshop. I sharpen the Hell out of each image at full size in the RAW converter at the max setting: 150.
Once I get the image toned how I like, etc. I then shrink the image down to 72 dpi and 1000 pixels wide or deep. At this stage I apply unsharpen mask in Photoshop. Not much, but just enough to try and give my images an edge since everything loses sharpness when published on the web.
Finally I do a simple save for web and upload the files one at a time from a folder in my desktop as I compose my entry.
Today's folder was called "Pujols" and this is what today's entry looked like:
http://manginphotography.net/2009/11/albert-pujols-wins-nl-most-valuable-pl.../ |
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Craig Kohlruss, Photographer
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Fresno | CA | USA | Posted: 12:17 AM on 11.25.09 |
| ->> Hey Mangin -- you should make your images bigger too! ;) |
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Brad Mangin, Photographer
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Pleasanton | CA | USA | Posted: 12:35 AM on 11.25.09 |
->> Kohlruss-
If I was a big time wedding photographer like you I WOULD make my images bigger :-)
But since I am a lowly sports guy I will keep'em the way they are- besides- this is how my Theme is designed...
- Brad
One of The Ohlone College Guys |
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Phil Hawkins, Photographer
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Fresno | ca | usa | Posted: 3:11 PM on 11.25.09 |
->> Thanks, Brad... I appreciate it!
Craig, as for size, what friggin' screen are you using? They look plenty big to me... |
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Craig Kohlruss, Photographer
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Fresno | CA | USA | Posted: 9:40 PM on 11.25.09 |
| ->> Between work and home I use a variety of monitors. As we all know photography is so much more impressive at a large size so if at all possible I push for bigger. I've been using 900 px wide on my blog and that looks about right on most monitors. |
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Dave Chidley, Photographer
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London | Ontario | Canada | Posted: 9:50 PM on 11.25.09 |
->> Hi Phil, how's things?? All good here up north.
When James, I and group were with you in Yellowstone I was blown away by the difference in image quality of our blog depending upon if you were viewing it with Safari or Firefox or ??. Huge differences. I have no idea why but there was a great quality range from program to program. Might want to compare a bit before you beat yourself up. |
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Daniel Malmberg, Photographer
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Huskvarna | Sweden | Sweden | Posted: 7:38 PM on 11.26.09 |
->> If images looks doesn't look the same way in different browsers, its most probably due to that fact some browsers supports embedded profiles. While others don't.
Safari reads the embedded profile in the image and shows it according to the profile in the image.
The same goes for some version 3 of FireFox, if you enable it. (default is that it's turned off).
Internet Explorer and other browsers doesn't read embedded profiles at all.
Some info about embedded image profiles in FireFox is found here:
http://www.dria.org/wordpress/archives/2008/04/29/633/
For FireFox users there are a nice plug in for enabling/disabling color management:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6891 |
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Dave Chidley, Photographer
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London | Ontario | Canada | Posted: 12:54 AM on 11.27.09 |
->> Thanks for the good info Daniel.
and Phil sorry you know I meant Yosemite |
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