Profile Avatars Request

[Avril1996]

I was hoping to add an avatar to my profile to give myself more of an 'image' when posting on the forums. The problem is, it shows a limit on the file size for these photos as 7KB or 80x80 pixels which is useless for anything of reasonable quality. I could understand a limit like this maybe 15 years ago, but we're in 2015 now and it would be excellent if we were allowed slightly larger images!

As an example, the limit over at Nude Celeb Forum is 78KB or 150x150 pixels which allows for a significant increase in quality compared with the avatars here. The difference is obvious because the avatars people have there are of very decent quality, whereas the ones here are either microscopic or pixelated. I tried experimenting in Photoshop and i can produce some reasonable avatars at a size of around 20KB, but anything less and it becomes very difficult.

Is it possible that we could see an increase in the allowance, please? I think it would provide a nice benefit to everyone who uses this forum and would certainly make our profiles look more attractive!

Cheers.

[Jenny48549]

Originally Posted by OnlyTease

I was hoping to add an avatar to my profile to give myself more of an 'image' when posting on the forums. The problem is, it shows a limit on the file size for these photos as 7KB or 80x80 pixels which is useless for anything of reasonable quality. I could understand a limit like this maybe 15 years ago, but we're in 2015 now and it would be excellent if we were allowed slightly larger images!

As an example, the limit over at Nude Celeb Forum is 78KB or 150x150 pixels which allows for a significant increase in quality compared with the avatars here. The difference is obvious because the avatars people have there are of very decent quality, whereas the ones here are either microscopic or pixelated. I tried experimenting in Photoshop and i can produce some reasonable avatars at a size of around 20KB, but anything less and it becomes very difficult.

Is it possible that we could see an increase in the allowance, please? I think it would provide a nice benefit to everyone who uses this forum and would certainly make our profiles look more attractive!

Cheers.

The limit here for your user group is 100x100 pixels and @8KB. Don't believe the limit you see in User CP.

[Avril1996]

Originally Posted by Jenny48549

The limit here for your user group is 100x100 pixels and @80KB. Don't believe the limit you see in User CP.

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately i haven't had much luck with this, i tried producing a picture with the dimensions of 100x100 and the size worked out at around 10KB so well under the size limit of 80KB. But when i attempt to apply the picture via URL it says that the 'Remote file is too large'.



The screenshot above shows the allowance which is visible in my profile. If i upload the avatar directly to VEF then it comes out compressed and much smaller than the original size, so i'm not sure what to do?

[MrInBetween]

I don't know what the actual size limit is for your user group - though I suspect a typo, 8kb sounds more likely than 80kb - but you could establish this by experimentation. If you have an image from Photoshop that you'd like to use, and it's of the right dimensions, you could try using IrfanView to get the file size down (download and install the plugins as well). You can load the psd file directly into IrfanView, then select 'Save As' and save it as a jpg. You can not only try progressively lower Save Qualities, but also setting an upper file size limit through the Riot Plugin. IrfanView can also do the original resizing.

[pharoahegypt]

I just use paint to shrink any images i want to use. advantage is it tells you the size too while you're working on the resizing.

[Avril1996]

Originally Posted by MrInBetween

I don't know what the actual size limit is for your user group - though I suspect a typo, 8kb sounds more likely than 80kb - but you could establish this by experimentation. If you have an image from Photoshop that you'd like to use, and it's of the right dimensions, you could try using IrfanView to get the file size down (download and install the plugins as well). You can load the psd file directly into IrfanView, then select 'Save As' and save it as a jpg. You can not only try progressively lower Save Qualities, but also setting an upper file size limit through the Riot Plugin. IrfanView can also do the original resizing.

Originally Posted by pharoahegypt

I just use paint to shrink any images i want to use. advantage is it tells you the size too while you're working on the resizing.

Yes, it's possible that the limit of 7KB is probably a mistake as this seems too small to do anything with. The avatars i have created so far have all been using the 'Save For Web' function in Photoshop, which is excellent at creating very small file sizes without sacrificing too much image quality. This also shows the size while editing, so it's possible to see how the file will turn out before saving. I did some testing by producing some blank image files at different dimensions, and it seems that whenever i upload an image either to VEF directly or an alternative image host, it is always refused or compressed downwards to the dimensions of 80x80. This seems a bit unusual because many people on the forums have images which are over 100 pixels on each size?

[MrInBetween]

Junior Members, Members and Senior Members share one set of limits for their avatars. As you progress up through the ranks - Vintage, Veteran - by making contributions, the limits (file and dimension) increase. Moderators have larger still. I used to know what they all were, but then they changed.

There have been some bugs in regard to avatars, and I think it's possible that (leaving aside file sizes) your allowed dimensions really are 100 x 100 pixels, but if you upload a large image, it gets constrained to 80 x 80. If you resize it before uploading, it might get through. I'm looking right now at a Junior Member who joined 3 days ago and who has a 100 x 100 avatar.

[rotobott]

You could google what sort of image you want, using advanced search with 80x80 dimensions, and then try using that.

https://www.google.com/search?q=seve...szh:80#imgrc=_

[Jenny48549]

Unfortunately is appears that the avatar upload is messed up again.... it will not even allow me change dimension sizes now

I'll see if I can get sysadmin to look at it but since it is a minor bug, it may go on the backburner for a while. Sorry

[Avril1996]

Originally Posted by MrInBetween

Junior Members, Members and Senior Members share one set of limits for their avatars. As you progress up through the ranks - Vintage, Veteran - by making contributions, the limits (file and dimension) increase. Moderators have larger still. I used to know what they all were, but then they changed.

There have been some bugs in regard to avatars, and I think it's possible that (leaving aside file sizes) your allowed dimensions really are 100 x 100 pixels, but if you upload a large image, it gets constrained to 80 x 80. If you resize it before uploading, it might get through. I'm looking right now at a Junior Member who joined 3 days ago and who has a 100 x 100 avatar.

That's interesting to learn about how the sizes increase by making more contributions, i didn't know about that. Personally i think it would perhaps be better for everyone if the size remained at the same maximum value throughout all the ranks, but i can still see the reason why that's not the case. Anyways, i attempted an avatar upload at 100x100 pixels but unfortunately it had the same effect as uploading a slightly larger 150x150 image, with a resize down to 80x80 pixels. I'm not sure how the new member you spoke of managed to do this without issue, that's quite odd.

Originally Posted by Jenny48549

Unfortunately is appears that the avatar upload is messed up again.... it will not even allow me change dimension sizes now

I'll see if I can get sysadmin to look at it but since it is a minor bug, it may go on the backburner for a while. Sorry

Ahh, well that would explain the problem i've been having. Hopefully it will be sorted sometime soon, in the meantime i'll just keep my profile as it is at the moment without an avatar. Thanks for raising the issue with the VEF team.