Optimizing online images

It is becoming apparent to me bit by bit that it is necessary, or at least advantageous, to customize each photo for the size and use that it will be used for.

This has come about by seeing great photos I've put up look so-so on my Facebook page. When viewing the shots full size on the computer they look just right, crisp, defined, and so on. When looking at the exact same shot scaled down, some of the pop and definition just doesn't hold. In the interest of time I've not been worrying too much about that but more and more I'm leaning towards showing just a few web-sized images that remain true to the large-scale result. On these blogs I do have a bit more control and they do look better thankfully but I want you to see all my work as I do (in so much as that is possible considering issues with monitor calibration).

In case you're not aware, the exact same image can look very different depending on your display's settings. Some software has the ability to read calibration settings and some don't. Some computers are set pretty well by default and others don't. Apple displays in general are pretty well calibrated whereas other displays are usually widely variant. I recently calibrated my LCD television and was astounded at how far off it was. But calibration issues aren't the main thing I was talking about with my initial comments about customization for the web.

Web images are typically smaller to be faster loading and friendlier to a wide audience with varying screen sizes. More often these days people are catering to larger wide screen sizes and faster internet connections so images are getting bigger but popular websites like Facebook also have to think about all that hosting space that gets eaten up so their images are by necessity smaller which can mean smaller size as well as file compression which does degrade image quality. As such, it is a good idea (as it turns out...) to custom edit images that will be shown at a size that is often an eighth (or less) of the original image size. Contrast, sharpness, and saturation are three things I've noticed suffer when a third party has to compress or re-size the image. 

Just exported

Optimized

Above you can see the difference between the two images. The one on the left, when viewed full size is plenty bright and crisp but when it was shrunk down, it lost some of that vibrance and clarity. The photo on the left was adjusted once it was closer to the web size and is notably different. Without getting into too much detail, I'd say the key is to get your image sized as close as possible to the size your online outlet will actually show, then review it to ensure it's qualities are true to the original file's appearance.

That's all I've got for now, stay tuned for more soon!