Photobucket Changes

[pelliott1954]

Hi All,

I am wondering if anyone else has noticed a deterioration in the sharpness of Pictures when transferred to the Forum from the new style Photobucket?

I recall Stan mentioning this with a Kingfisher picture a few days ago.

I am now absolutely convinced that the transfer is somehow softening the shots.

A few days ago I posted some shots of my dogs, Oscar and Ollie and there were some comments about softness, but to be honest I didn't pursue by looking back at the processed shots, I just agreed with the comments.

Now however, I have posted some shots in The Transport / Air section of a Tornado taking off, the first shot is of the Aircrafts Tailfin, which has been specially painted and has a logo and some writing on it, on my own screen saved jpeg it is nice and sharp, on the Photobucket image it is equally as sharp so it seems to have taken that transfer ok, but on the forum image it is really poor and soft, the writing, particularly at the top in the red area looks terrible. (this shot was probably at 150m distant)

The thing is, I have never noticed this before and am wondering if it has anything to do with the new style Photobucket or has something changed with the Forum quality?

Do I need to sharpen my images significantly more?

Comments anyone?

Regards Paul

[Nathaniel]

Re: Photobucket Changes

Paul, I have had this problem for the last year or so and I have moved to Imageshack and have no trouble since. I often found members commenting on the softness of the pictures and I was going round the bend until some members suggested that the root cause was perhaps photobucket. I pay a small fee like $2 per month for a little bit extra space on imageshack etc.

YOu might also try posting via Flickr as some members do. I sure people like Trev, Colin C,MX5, and others more experienced will suggest other alternatives.

Regards
Nat

[pelliott1954]

Re: Photobucket Changes

Thanks Nat,
I may have a look at Flickr and Image shack.

In the meantime I have been doing a bit of experimenting, I have resharpened the Tailfin image and posted it again on the Tornado thread, it was slightly improved to me eye, then I found a way of going back to the original Photobucket style and posted the same image again, and this time, again to my eyes anyway, it is much sharper!!

I would appreciate it if some could take the time to have a look and give me their thoughts.

Regards Paul

[Nathaniel]

Re: Photobucket Changes

Paul, for ImageShack I suggest you ask Celtex who introduced me to it.

Nat

[Opifex]

Re: Photobucket Changes

Hi,

Post #9 on the Tornado thread looks a lot sharper to me. I couldn't see a lot of difference between the earlier attempts.

I've also been disappointed with images loaded from Photobucket so will try Flickr next time.

Graham.

[fadetoblack]

Re: Photobucket Changes

The last version (#3) is sharpest.
Be interested to know exactly what you did to achieve that.
You say you: "..went back to the original Photobucket style..."
But how ?

Fred D

[Macro Meister]

Re: Photobucket Changes

I don't know about Photobucket, but wherever you store them for posting you might want to consider sharpening them after re-sizing. Going from a 15MB TIFF or JPEG to a 400k JPEG isn't going to do a lot for it cosmetically, and I find a gentle sharpen always helps. If you use Smugmug (as I do for my website) you can set a parameter for sharpening your images on Smugmug.

I don't know why Photobucket should be a problem. Perhaps they resize larger files to keep overall volume down? FLICKR are good.

[Papathanassi]

Re: Photobucket Changes

Interesting observation Paul,
I am using Photobucket to upload images using an IPAD, now the IPAD even makes poor images look good! I have had comments on a few of my shots about softness, so I have checked them on my Photoshop computer and although I say it myself, they look spot on. So I wouldn't personally sharpen my images more than I am doing now, just in case they came through too sharp, and making one look an idiot.
Lets see if any one else has noticed the problem?

Papa.

[Stan]

Re: Photobucket Changes

Take a look at this thread which could solve the problem

Stan

[pelliott1954]

Re: Photobucket Changes

Thanks all for the comments, Stan I have seen yours and Treffs experiment uploading direct to the site and as I think you have both concluded, that is not the way to go.

I have now added another shot of the Spitfire I had put on in the "Reprocessed Pictures" thread in "Air", this time from Flickr instead of the previous Photobucket one which some said was soft.

To me the difference is enormous, I would appreciate any more comments but I think my mind is made up, Photobucket is history and Flickr, here I come!!

Sadly I have already encountered the error that others are suffering with when trying to upload images.

Regards Paul