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File size and greener internetting

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geetwee

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There seems to be a misconception that large images automatically lead to a large file size. There is a little bit truth in that but JPEG compression plays a much bigger role. Here are two images both with the same dimensions (1200x800). Both resized and saved in Irfanview. One with a JPEG quality of 100% (no compression) and the other one with a JPEG quality of 80%. Can you spot the difference? The 100% one is 693kb, the 80% one is 126kb.

How does that relate to greener internetting. Well all those bits of course have to travel from wherever they are stored to your computer. Bigger files take a heavier toll on the infrastructure and thus use more electricity.





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It depends on what format your photos are in now. If they are JPEG, you aren't going to be able to compress them any further without more loss. Because JPEG is already a lossy format.

If they are RAW, look into the free DNG converter by Adobe. It can make Raw files smaller with no quality loss.

there are some other options:

Other formats like TIFF, PNG, etc. probably can't compress further without loss and may make them bigger, since JPEG and RAW/DNG are already compressed formats! The real problem might be too many megapixels. If you are willing to throw out resolution, you can make the images smaller, but that would cause quality loss.

cheers Marti

--
  • living in harmony with nature and other beings...will create an better world for all * marti58 -2006
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marti58/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/worldwidefriendship/
 
Hi friends,

just popped in and saw this interesting topic.

On my behalf, I clearly see that there are other actors rather than us (photographer community worldwide) that actively contribute to all the contrary of greener internet.

Only in the digital photographic material producers market, we will find all those that tell a costumer that there machine is better, because of a huuuuge number of MegaMegaMegaPixels. Then the average costumer starts firing, and at home is faced with 5, 10, or even 20MB of an archive.

Most of the costumers have no idea about cropping, downsizing, converters to dng or jpeg, and so on. They just wonder how it is that the picture takes an hour, five minutes etc. to upload to some place.

All cameras should produce, as an environmental plus, a small jpeg ALWAYS, and stored automatically in a separate folder. Programs that handle photos, should automatically detect those folders and pictures, and offer them as 'green, low weight' option.

Both of this procedures and implementations are upon software, there are no hardware issues. Just that easy that in the next cameramaker versions update you find that your 16GB memory card will have to loose some lousy kb (what is a kaybee, sounds like roman empire official drink). Next time you get your software upgrade, whatsoevershoppe congrats you with your new greener thinking.

Pros downsize. Originals or larger jpegs they will only use in some special momentos. Amateurs downsize. Beginners... beginners just do what the machine and the simplest steps of the software allow them to do.

We should ask openly all manufactures of cameras, as well as all companies dedicated to related software, to introduce these two implementations.

THAT would make a huge difference. THAT would lower INMEDIATELY and WORLDWIDE consumption.

And nobody would loose in that deal, as far as I can go through the process.

Where should such proposal or claim get presented?

Kindos regardos,

Miguel

http://furlock.zenfolio.com

--
Moving as smooth as possible on a thin skin of ice protecting me from myself
 
I gennerally compress my jpgs for internet at 60%. Look fine to me and small size!
--
Bill
717,828,H5, A100, R1
I need a handheld puter just to remember how to change settings!

http://www.pbase.com/bill_b
 
I always compress at least 85% for posting here and sometimes more. As Jo noted, you can't tell the difference.

--
Busch

Take the scenic route! Life is too short to do otherwise.

http://www.pbase.com/busch
 
issue 800 x 600 pixels pictures, that will save the planet .....

Seriously people do you really mean what you say ????

How many of you leave a wealth of home equipment on standby instead of power off ?
--
JJ.
 
So many times, I'm unable to comment on threads because the darn photos are bigger than Dallas. I'd be sitting here all day.

And compressing a file is so easy. It's always amazed me that many believe that a high compression photo will look best. Well...this is the Internet - and the display sequence is much different than that on a computer - which is different than the print out.

Thanks for a great topic, Jo.

Sky
 
My monitor CRT - Ooops not so green.
I have three of them - Ooops less green.
One 19" - Not too bad for CRT.
Two 21" - Ooops pretty bad.
All on 16 hours a day - Ooohhh my gawd not green at all.



Me ride Iron Pony not driive automobile - OoooHHH very good green.

Thirteen miles to the Big Mac - Oooops doctor no like.
--
Marion

Email [email protected]

web site

http://www.pbase.com/stf
 
... then crashed.

But I managed to retrieve the 'dump-file', the black box which recorded the process of the crash.

Partly as a result of your intitial post and also JJWinkel's comment.

Here it is:

I see issues of personal and immediate convenience 'it's useful for Meeee Myyy Friends' ... and that may indeed include 'saving electricity for self'

Then I see 'green awareness' which seems to be to be gripped by a pair of tongs, one handle of which is genuine concern, and he other of which is a politically generated pressure in which the behaviours of recycling are not necessarily linked ecologically with the explicit goal.

For example, the street-lamps on my main street in Hounslow have got ostentatious units of combined solar panel and mini wind generator

... if they could have packed in a Tidal-electric-generator and a Lunar-gravitation-differential-generator and added some conductive rod to the earth's core to play the geothermal-electric card then they would.

Let's clarify how this is not linked ecologically with the explicit goal?

Well, the cost of saving the minimal power is outweighted by the cost of design, production and installation and their effect is minimal.

They are in a place of NO consistent wind ... those propellors have never rotated as far as I know .. and I have been out there about four times a week in all weather to observe an inefficiency I could have predicted, since they are flanked by buildings higher than them.

These buildings also cut out a lot of sky-light so solar electic power ain't exactly humming and putting a smile on Scottie's face.
And Spock's eyebrow is raised higher than usual, too.
And Kirk strains his face, purses is lips and stammers 'w - w - wHY?'

... yes I talked with a local counsellor who agreed that they were not the most efficient in terms of design but emphasised that they are designed to recoup far more as a resut of public savings estimated as a result of public behaviour changed on account of their educational effect on peoples awareness.

OK. Fair point ... though I had the feeling that Mr Spin Doctor was performing brain surgery on me while he spoke.

Later, I came out of my Trance of False Understanding. The Councillor had got his smile and a handshake so he knew he'd done well.

I had trotted away, the horse of my complacency firmly between my legs and I shouted 'WHOAHHHHH!'

Two hundred yard East and West of this main bit of the main street the buildings are a lot lower but there are still street lamps. There IS consistent wind, far more light and Just As Many People streaming along.
But NO 'Eco-Generators' ............

The main part of the main street is a pedestrian zone where there is room for MANY big posters in well-fortified metal stands which are more Metal-Bearing than even the post boxes, trash bins and telephone boxes.

These have been put up by the present local government and are reserved for VERY loud Social Statement posters ... all of them 'signed' by the Local Council in Power here. The messages are all well and good, and they are different, All Different .... everybody's concerns are represented and pictured in different poster .... and yet something is THE SAME in each ... that NAME of the local government.

It's like those 1950's radio plays where 'And here is a message from your Sponsor' took more aritime than the product itvself.

And those Alternative-Energy addons? It's looking to me like their proximity to the notices was more important over more effective placement a few hundred yards to the East or West.

My Crash Log ... my dump file ... my black box ... HAH!

Here's where the fatal process in my thinking occured: That counsellor was Still in a position of truth .. but not of WHOLE truth ....

He could still justify fitting what he had said to me. But the 'leech' aspect ... the Symbiotic aspect is the extent to which 'ecology' is being 'identified' LOUDLY with that particular set of Local Governors.

I do fear when valid Global agendas are being used as vehicles for political and commercial advantage rather than fully thought through and implemented on their own terms.

Jo points out and area where we can do something practical for ourselves, each other and the world.
JJWinkel, among other things reminded me of the importance of extrapolating.

So I did, and I crashed.
And this was the record of it.

Regards
Glyn

'We' save, 'They' reap the profits.

And the point I finish with is I read JJ Winkel's post as emphasising
 
As network admin, here's my 2c

Obviously there's some logic about filesize and download time. However you must pay in mind that the infrastructure is working 24/7 and network load doesn't necessary reflect on power consumption, in fact from experience I know that the relevance for servers lays not in size, but access frequency (because of file buffering).

However, there's one valid point you make a JPEG file with quality 99 will be often nearly half the filesize of one with q=100, and you won't really spot the difference.

Serving such files says good things about you caring for potential viewer with "weak" bandwith, too.

--
http://gallery.id.uw.edu.pl
 
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