Well, all of the book stuff is done and I’m finally coming out of the fog, or so I thought. 
Yesterday, I tried to upload my SoFoBoMo project to the official website. It seemed easy enough. All I had to do was enter some pertinent information, upload an icon that had to be no larger than 150 pixels on a side and less than 40 KB in size, and presto-chango, it would appear after the moderator approved it.
So, why did it take me 45 minutes of frustration and then finally giving up and throwing my hands in the air? Well, you see, ummm, actually, well, I couldn’t get the image small enough, in KB, to upload. I made it 150 px, no problem, but no matter how what quality level I tried to save it with, it was still over 40 KB. I even saved it with a quality of 0 (zero), which made the image look like total &#$%!!! So, I bailed on it and decided to try it again this morning.
Last night, as I was about to drift off to sleep, my subconscious mind, as it usually does, came up with the solution. There was a faint whispering saying: Dude! Remember “Save For Web…”? Talk about your Aha! moments!!! I hadn’t used Save For Web in more than a year because it strips out so much information, including embedded copyright information. Also, the colors seem a bit duller, etc. So, I never use it.
So, when I got up this morning, I made a beeline for the computer, created an icon, did a Save For Web and what do you know, well under 40KB and it doesn’t look like &#$%! Score: Conscious – 0, Subconscious – 1.
If you get a chance and want to have some well spent time, mosey on over there and have a look. So far, there are about 10 projects posted so far. Good stuff!
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10 Responses to “Brain cramp!”
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LOL @ Paul – - We call them Brain Toots in our house, and I’m the King of Brain Toots!!
Cheers,
John
btw, the ‘colors seem duller’ bit is because you aren’t handling the colour management correctly. If, before you ‘save for web’ you convert the image into an sRGB colour profile, then the colours will not change when you save for web.
@Gordon. I always do convert to sRGB, but it does seem to lose some color. If I oversaturate a bit and then save, it looks good.
Lucky me, I read this before tackling the process at the official website. Thanks, Paul for saving me from the headache. I’m not so certain I would ever have come up with the “save for web” solution. In other words, as John puts it, I may never have had that “brain toot”.
Paul – does it lose colour in the resulting file, or lose colour in the save for web dialog (there are colour management settings hiding in that dialog too, under the small diamond at the top right of the ‘output’ image. For some inexplicable reason, those are almost never set correctly.
Once it is all set up correctly, you should not need to do any colour adjustment for a ‘save for web’ other than that initial convert to sRGB prior to opening ‘save for web’
Hope that helps somewhat.
@Gordon: Thanks. I’ll check into it.
@Anita: I’m glad that I could save you some headache and a possible brain cramp, or ‘toot’!
I had the same problem. I resorted to using Irfanview (free sw), it has a handy little “Sharpen after resample” that looks as if it’s designed to make icon’s. It really goes overboard on the sharpening, seems to do the job.
Unfortunately for me when I have an Epiphany like that in the middle of the night, I won’t wait until the morning!
I’m glad you got it all done. I will go over and have a look.
Such a beautiful photo today. One of your spring photos finest.
I finally downloaded the small version of your book, and it is fabulous!! Glad you were finally able to get it up for all to see.
Very beautiful picture; very colorful!