Increase the sig size?

[Kekvit Irae]

Will the users, who have the honest intention to use the option to display a larger image, please be so kind to move the discussion towards one about filesize and picturedimensions?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what this thread is about?

[TosaInu]

Only #1 contains some actual proposed limits.

[TosaInu]

We'll get this ball rolling.

Extra picture for broadband users is now enabled. Note that there are still narrowband users (for whatever reason). So, keep in mind to use your normal signature too for 'advertising'. The extra one also only supports one picture, no text. A flash picture doesn't work, unless you manage to input the whole code.

Animated images are no problem, as long as it does not contain sound and/or eye/brain unpleasant animations. Pictures can be 500 pixels wide and 200 high. The filesize is set to 100.0 kb. These are todays limits and members are expected to respect those. However, they are always open to discussion and will be changed when the BroadBand users agree about new limits.

Have fun.

[sapi]

Sounds good, though i'd argue that the 100kb limit's a bit low for that resolution (especially if you want to use transparencies, as pngs are usually a fair bit bigger than that).

A max of 500kb gets my vote.

[TosaInu]

A max of 500kb gets my vote.

Fine with me if the bb users agree about that.

[Kekvit Irae]

NO!
500kb is definitely too much for something that is 500x200 pixels. Heck, on Gaia, they have a size restriction of 100kb, and there are no problems fitting a 500x500 jpg into there. Half a megabyte will screw over both the low AND high bandwidth people.
Some people need to learn how to use Save For Web in photoshop instead of using PNGs. Transparent GIFs in 256 colors at 75% diffusion works as well.

[Foz]

NO!
500kb is definitely too much for something that is 500x200 pixels. Heck, on Gaia, they have a size restriction of 100kb, and there are no problems fitting a 500x500 jpg into there. Half a megabyte will screw over both the low AND high bandwidth people.
Some people need to learn how to use Save For Web in photoshop instead of using PNGs. Transparent GIFs in 256 colors at 75% diffusion works as well.

First off, sorry to dig up an old thread, but I was instructed to from up on high (no not God - but close, at least for our purposes here).

I have to agree with Kekvit Irae here - 500 KB is just too much for a picture that size. A 500 x 200 pic is 100,000 pixels, which means a 500KB size allots 5 Bytes per pixel of the image. A typical image can be stored in dazzling color using 8 bits per pixel for each channel of the RGB trio, giving 24 bits total, or 3 Bytes total per pixel. For web purposes (and almost all purposes, frankly) 24-bit color is great, since it represents 256 levels of each color, which is generally what the standard is anyway ATM. This yields 256^3 = 16,777,216 possible colors, which is the familiar 16M amount for any of you acquainted with 24-bit "true color." The end result is that a 500 x 200 image should not ever require more than 300KB + some small bit of file overhead to store, and that is assuming it is entirely uncompressed in 24-bit color. Even the lossless formats generally have some compression available, which would further lower the space required to store such an image perfectly in true color. I would suggest that 250KB is easily achievable without any loss to a 100K pixel image at all (I just tried one and achieved a 202KB PNG file - other formats were not as good), and 200KB is sometimes possible via lossless compression, depending on the image. 100KB should be easily achievable with lossy formats (most notably JPEG) and with enough quality remaining that you'll barely be able to tell the difference, if at all. I just sized a screenshot I had taken down to 500 x 200 and saved it lossless, then as a quality 10 JPEG. I spent 1 minute tabbing between them, and could not tell a single thing that was changing at all, yet the JPEG managed to be under 100KB. So, in case there is any doubt on the issue, 100KB is plenty good enough for quality signature viewing.

If anyone wants to make a case for supporting lossless sigs then they can of course feel free to do so, however I am resting at this point as the difference in viewing is negligible to me, and the benefit in load times is enough to make the lower 100KB limit preferable.

On a separate but related matter, is there some way that the larger Sig slot for broadband users can be advertised better as a feature? I had no idea that any such thing was available until I started asking about the 10KB sig limit being raised, and have to assume that most users likewise have not discovered this feature. It will do little good for anyone to have a larger signature slot unless other people are informed and may possibly choose to use it and therefore see those pics.