image uploads - different quality settings needed

4 posts by 2 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: January 3, 2013   (RSS)

By Deborah - December 28, 2012

In reference to the setting at "Admin > General Settings > Image Resizing Quality", I often find it difficult to work with one site-wide image quality setting if the site has a particular mix of image needs.

For example, I have a site that contains the following:

- Large background photos, ideally uploaded at minimum resolution.

- General photos (news, etc.), ideally uploaded at medium resolution.

- Ads that contain text withing the image, ideally uploaded at high resolution.

Ideally, it would be useful to someday have an optional "custom quality setting" checkbox associated with each upload in the section editor settings, and with an image quality scale of 1 to 10.

For now I'm wondering if anyone else has arrived at a work-around solution for offering a range of upload quality. (Client is not versed with photo editor software, so they'll be uploading all images at full resolution.) Thanks for any ideas...

Deborah

By gregThomas - January 2, 2013

Hi Deborah,

Thanks for the feedback, this is a great idea. We will look into adding to future release of CMS Builder.

Unfortunatly there isn't an easy way to create a work around, as the image quality settings are so deeply ingraned into CMS Builder. 

You could try uploading the images at normal or high quality, but uploading them at a slightly smaller resolution than you require, and then displaying them at the full resolution you need. For example, create an image thumbnail of 150px by 150px, but display the image on the page at 200px by 200px.

Something else worth noting is that the image quality setting only affects JPG images when they are being resized. So if your uploading a PNG or GIF, or the size of the image isn't changing, the image quality setting will have no affect on it. 

Thanks

Greg

Greg Thomas







PHP Programmer - interactivetools.com

By Deborah - January 2, 2013

Greg, I so appreciate your reply and ideas. And if you can add that to the CMSB feature request list... all the better! (Anyone else who wants same, please speak now and have your voice heard!)

I'm familiar with the methods described, but am not enitrely comfortable with client-side image resizing via the browser. For example, 'Enable automatic image resizing' can be disabled in Internet Explorer. Also, if the client is uploading photos of varying original dimensions, then the browser resizing quality can be unpredictable.

I think my best option for now is to either set my client up with an image editor and instruct them how to downsample for each usage on the site or to charge them for my time to edit and upload. My end goal is for the site visitor to experience the fastest download time balanced with the best quality needed for that specific image.

I didn't realize that CMSB does not alter PNG or GIF files. Is that always true with every CMSB version? I believe I've had a client upload animated GIFs that were resized (thus eliminating the animation layers). Can you confirm this?

Again, thanks for your reply.
Deborah

By gregThomas - January 3, 2013

Hi Deborah,

I'll ensure that this gets added to the CMSB feature request list. If you have any other features that you want to suggest, this thread is probably the best place to add them:

http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum-posts.php?Notice-CMSB-Upcoming-Features-and-Development-Plan-71685

Sorry, I don't think I was very clear on the last post; CMSB does resize PNG and GIF files it just doesn't change the quality of them, JPEGs are the only format which the quality setting applies too. 

Thanks

Greg

Greg Thomas







PHP Programmer - interactivetools.com