dot Mac Gallery displays soft focus photos

http://gallery.mac.com/thud4

I shoot some very sharp images with 85mm f1/2, 70-200mm f/28, 35mm f/1.4, 300mm f/2.8 etc, but when viewed on the .mac gallery, the photos are soft focus. When a photo is downloaded, it is slightly sharper.

My gallery photos are often 1-2MB, yet I notice on Picasa a 300Kb photo is tack sharp.

Is this softness just the .mac standard presentation?

If so, where is a good place to store hundreds/thousands of photos for our Porsche Club members to view.

Gary

I've noticed the same issue. I posted a question a while back ( http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1017&message=26442658 }

My Picasa albums are much sharper than the .Mac and as yet have no clue as to why.

Maybe this bump will find someone that might explain it.

regards,

d

Wasn't sure where to post this, but since this is more alive than the other thread, I ended up here.

Anyway, if you compare the two images, they are not the same... not the same dimensions, not the same file size.

You need to compare the same images. If you ARE uploading the same image, clearly iweb or .mac is altering it.

AOL used to be well known for re-compressing images within their browser. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple are doing the same to save their bandwidth... but it could also be an issue with iWeb which is NOT a professional product.

Tech support could shed no light on this non-sharp issue. They did confirm there are no controls for the user to control the upload quality. It's all on their end.

Tech sent a message to .mac group which is to provide me an email answer by tomorrow.

Tech did point out the .mac provides other things like email etc.

Every image I put in my web gallery is downsized to something like 1024 x 768. I don't see any option to leave the images in full resolution. IMHO, this seems to contradict Apple's advertising. http://www.apple.com/dotmac/webgallery.html

--
Jim
'There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.'

• • Ansel Adams

Probably goes without saying, but please let us know what Tech Support has to say about the problem. Thanks.

OK, there is a way to display the images in their original resolution up to a 6Mb. limit.

You need to click on your WebGallery in iPhoto and then the "settings" gear icon at the bottom of the iPhoto window. You need to click Allow downloading of photos then click the "Show Advanced" button and change the Download quality dropdown from "Optimized" to "Actual" then click Publish.
--
Jim
'There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.'

• • Ansel Adams

Dear Gary,

Pat here from .Mac Support. Thank you for your reply. As I understand it you use a Canon camera and lens that produce semi-professional quality pictures and when uploading these pictures to your .Mac web gallery from iPhoto or Aperture you are noticing that the sharpness of the image does not stay intact. Some of the iPhoto images you publish to .Mac Web Gallery are reduced in size during the upload process. Apple is aware of this and it is expected under certain circumstances.

iPhoto/Aperture down-samples--or reduces in size--larger images during the upload process so that they are easier to upload and easier to access over more types of Internet connections. This behavior is normal, and it is consistent with how other iLife applications present objects on the web.

Photos published from iPhoto to .Mac Web Gallery have a limit of 6 megapixels (MP). Larger images downloaded from Web Gallery should look good when printed on a standard inkjet printer at up to 16 by 20 inches (40 cm by 50 cm) depending on the original resolution.

For more information about the maximum photo size available for publishing with .Mac Web Gallery, please see the following article:

.Mac: Web Gallery maximum photo size
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n306626

Personally i think its something to do with the dynamic resizing it does. I bet it uses a 'quick' algorithm that produces soft images, much in the same way Preview's images are soft when zoomed out.

Speaking of Preview producing soft images when zoomed out, have you ever compared it to Quick Look? Quick Look does a great job on scaled images, but Preview doesn't. This is weird because Quick Look is supposed to be the "quick preview" app, whereas Preview can actually be used for image editing! But Preview gets it wrong, and Quick Look gets it right.

Jim that did it. I uploaded a single image to my Picasa album and my .Mac album. Use actual size on both uploads and that took care of the image differences.
Thanks

Dennis

The answer doesn't address the softness issue. When Aperture came out with the ability to post to web galleries, I immediately used it for uploading previews to two clients. They both complained that the photos were soft in the gallery. I've since returned to exporting to jpegs and creating a gallery in iView (the only think I keep it on my hard disk for).
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http://www.evansbrasfield.com