Quality of popups?

[Boy]

The top picture is the 'original' picture and is not resaved because it is only referenced (i.e., stays outside XWD). It is, thus, crisper than the other two which were resampled and resaved (i.e., compressed again), losing some quality in the process.

If your original is really that small, I'd suggest you use the placeholder as you did. But if you have a larger copy, you can embed it as you did with the other two samples. Perhaps a little sharpening with the photo tool might help as well. Using the original file with real text and (vector) graphics would even be better.

[Jambo]

Sorry... here is copy of original header.jpg file, so you can fully see the difference!
I forgot that the placeholder looks for a file outside of the original .web save.


ps... even of this site, the uploaded header.jpg does not look as clear as the original!?!

[steve.ledger]

Hi Jambo,

Your .web file has only bitmaps rather than vector resources, so it's harder to work with them and keep them sharp.
In Web Designer options you can set that file to be exported as .PNG
This will reduce the fuzziness assiciated with JPG compression.
JPG is best for photographs, but not with the kind of artwork that your banner is.



Here's an 800 wide (forum limit) copy of your banner as a PNG

[Jambo]

Hi SLedger,

Many thanks for your help and response, also thanks to Boy for his help, too.

The Gallery site was inherited and was set up originally for WordPress and the customer wants to keep at least his page one blogging access through the admin panel. So I have been trying to utilize the existing design components (hence the 850px wide header), to help expand the site into new areas.

I already have an ongoing problem with importing vector images (.CDR) and I am waiting for Xara help (ticket wip) to come back with a possible solution with their import filter for CDR as it can only be used with very simple image shapes with V5 (and pre) CDR's, else freezes and crashes with whole file data loss! Xara have passed on a small registry tweak to create ongoing back-ups, which works just great. Although it is just a minor change of a boolean value, I did not want to post it up here just in case!!!! If you were not aware of it, I can mail it outside of this site if it will help anyone?!?

So, I have been trying to convert to raster images and import via that route.

Now, with the 500px limit on import size I have discovered a slight distortion when re-sizing the image back up, inside XWD after importing it, as it does not bring the image up to the exact correct proportional size of the original.
So, if I then manually correct the imported size (which is less than 1px), then hey-presto, the image is as sharp as original!!!

Could this situation also apply to importing oversize .JPG's into XWD for pop-up images inside frames?
If so, then it must be better to ensure that importing for pop-ups should be pre-sized to within the 500px limit, to prevent the chance of distortion?
Or, at least be in 'pixel-perfect-proportion' to re-sizing! In my case, it appears that a ratio of 4:3 will work.

I welcome your input... and thanks in advance.
Jambo

[jimhanus]

Jambo,
I'm confused by your post concerning the 500px limit. I imported a 1600x1200 .jpg photo and it was resized by XWD down to 500x375px. I then upsized it to 1600h and the vertical dimension upsized to 1200 as it should. I compared this version in XWD with an unmodified version and cannot see any difference between the 2. Can you be a little more specific on the dimensions? I work mostly with photos and anything that can help me get better images is always appreciated.

[Jambo]

Hi Jimhanus,

Yes, you are spot on, 1600 x 1200 works perfectly in proportion 4:3 ratio.
But what happens if you crop your original pic, say to get a better composure, and the proportions thus may be changed. Then there may be a danger of resizing with one of the measurements being out by less than 1px, hence it will show a distortion in the XWD page.

Hope this helps... but it is a complex issue, I think, hence not easy to write on here!

Cheers,
Jambo

[jimhanus]

Jambo,
You are correct. I cropped the same image to 1600x1192 then imported it. When resized back up to 1600h, the vertical dimension became 1193.6px instead of 1192px, 1.6px too tall, and I do see some very slight loss of quality. When resized to 1600x1192 after importing, the image does get a little sharper. Interesting, but what can be done, other than having all photos 4:3 dimension?

[Jambo]

Jimhanus,

I too use a great deal of product photo's in my work, which as supplied by 'customer', usually require some tweaking of colour for best web results and part cropping for better layout.

I have now adopted the quick process of running them through 'Easy Imager' (or any other freebie picture processor) in batches, to give me a max of 500px either landscape or portrait format, using best quality for .jpg as well. Then I can be sure that the best reults are achieved when importing into XWD.

I would welcome anyone's input here, if there may be another better way to achieve this.

I think XWD is an excellent product, but as with most comp software, there are usually one or two application problems depending on your applied use.

Cheers,
Jambo