Tile Slideshow 2 Widget - Pictures Become Blurry When Previewing / Publishing

Maybe one of you fine people know the answer to my dilemma?

I add hi-res images to the 'Tile Slideshow 2 Widget' slider but after saving the widget and previewing it,
the images become horribly blurry to the point where it is almost unusable.

Has anyone figured out how to avoid this problem?

Thanks,
Richard

I have moved this to the web design forum where the answer might be clearer. :)

I see what You did there Sir! ;))

I did have a look and the images I loaded looked OK and one that had a bar code came out reasonably sharp.

And I enlarged the slide show to 960 px width.

I suspect the images are compressed to make them load faster.

This is the website I added the slideshow to:

www.starclassics.com

Perhaps it happened because I removed the box and text at the bottom?

I'm stumped... And lost!

Thanks

The decals and gasket images certainly are not sharp. I really have no idea why. Maybe one of the members who know how these things work will have a better idea.

They are all blurry but some images hide it better I guess?

Thank you kindly for checking Sir.

dutchim, the widget is set up for 600x400px images.
If you are putting hires images in it, they are being scaled down.

What you need to do is resize the widget page background to your required size and move the bottom text line and background box to fit again at the bottom.

Also check each image still has the Name WTag:scaled:image.

Acorn

Thank you for your reply Acorn...

I will take a look at it this evening!

Will report back :)

I've been experimenting.

I changed the Widget page size to XGA (960x640px) and replaced the default images with Stock Photos.
These work out at 192dpi vs 60dpi for any scaled original.

I then selected an image and in the Names dialog, I changed WTag:scaled:image to WTag:scaled(600):image.

This was an experiment that worked for me.

Acorn

What does the (600) do Acorn?

A thought I had last night and I think you have suggested is to scale the widget, note the new size of the images, and create new images to that size at 96 or 192px.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

What does the (600) do Acorn?

A thought I had last night and I think you have suggested is to scale the widget, note the new size of the images, and create new images to that size at 96 or 192px.

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Gary, scaling the widget only stretches the images that have been diced. also, that wouldn't help if the OP has a fixed size in mind for the design.

The (600) part is a tad baffling. If I set it to (100), I got a lot of tiling; (800) was too big as it just cropped bits off.

Acorn

When I scaled the widget to 960 eidth, then created new photos at 192dpi to the new size, the Name info shows WTag:scaled(600):image automatically. It is all very odd.

Also look in the Bitmap Gallery. There are two sets of images, for retina hi res and normal I assume. And then two new sets of images for the scaled images.

I think extra compression is being added which is degrading the image sharpness.

Gary, I am still guessing.

I, however, have changed my Widget to line up better than my first stab. No reason for it to be right.
What I haven't done is crop and use all images at 960x615 from bitmap copies, I used some stretching so I assume the widget is building up things from the originals.

It also might be the OP did not Retina ticked, hence fuzzy presentation.

Here is my current work: Attachment 125332.

Acorn

O man You guys have been busy!!!

Retina was ticked since You were wondering.

I had stretched the widget some before double clicking and replacing the images.

And I noticed You have to drop the images instead of pasting them onto the page otherwise they don't always show. Probable has to do with the naming of the files as mentioned.

Will check out Your file Acorn!

Richard

Update: So the trick is in the Proper Name Tags plus have the images at 192?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dutchim

Update: So the trick is in the Proper Name Tags plus have the images at 192?

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Richard, looks that way but happy to be told I'm wrong.

Acorn

I had enlarged it to 696x291 (I think), but just noticed when opening the widget you really are only working with the 600x250 that is the imported size.

So one has to set the page size (inside the widget) and go from there.

Had images in it that were close to 300dpi but that clearly didn't matter much.

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction!

Richard

Always one to flog a deceased equine. I took the original wine glass photo from the Bitmap Gallery and resized it to match the photo in the slide show. Then I increased the zoom to 192% and did a side-by-side screenshot. You can clearly see the loss of image quality in the slideshow version especially in the stem of the glass and the small highlight on the glass. And this is after Acorn tweaked the code.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Always one to flog a deceased equine. I took the original wine glass photo from the Bitmap Gallery and resized it to match the photo in the slide show. Then I increased the zoom to 192% and did a side-by-side screenshot. You can clearly see the loss of image quality in the slideshow version especially in the stem of the glass and the small highlight on the glass. And this is after Acorn tweaked the code.

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So are you an Optimist or Pessimist, Gary? I'm an Optimist as I see two half-full wine glasses and the second is getting blurrier by the second!

Perhaps this Thread could be moved to dear Xara as the Photo Widgets deserve a rework (or an explanation).

Acorn

Quote:

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Perhaps this Thread could be moved to dear Xara as the Photo Widgets deserve a rework (or an explanation).

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Totally agree.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Totally agree.

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Cheers! Another bottle en route.

Acorn

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

So are you an Optimist or Pessimist, Gary? I'm an Optimist as I see two half-full wine glasses and the second is getting blurrier by the second!

Perhaps this Thread could be moved to dear Xara as the Photo Widgets deserve a rework (or an explanation).

Acorn

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I second that... It was the cleanest looking slideshow I could find with working links on desktop and mobile (some other widgets don't even do that).

Now it just needs a little love from the developers.