Should we put our galleries on a diet?

[lmstamper]

I brought this up in the other thread about the changes that SCS will be going though concerning paying for gallery access. Since I don't claim to be computer savy I thought that I would ask if it would be helpful if we trimmed our galleries down a little bit? I know that many of us have items posted that are cased, cards that are the exactly the same but in a different color combo, or items that we're just not crazy about. I can't see how this would hurt. I am not suggesting that we do away with all of the wonderful ideas and beautiful creations. I am just thinking of how much smoother it may run if each person cut out one or two things from their gallery. Would this really help out?

[laurakj]

That's heading in the right direction
I think what would be more helpful is if people would limit the size of the uploads to under 50K each. I do this automatically every time I scan my cards. I've seen a ton of cards that look like they were uploaded straight from the scanner at full resolution and complete with extra white space around the card. All that "nothing" takes up valuable hard drive space. Just my .02

[cyndiestamps]

Here's a secret I learned from a professional photographer: never show people ALL of your photos, only the best ones. That way they'll think you are an awesome photographer! I thought it was good advice and probably could apply to cards as well. I know I don't upload everything I make.


Cyndie

[Jay Dub]

Isn't there a resolution (size limit) for uploads? I may be remembering this from before out upgrade but I thought uploads had to be 600x800 or less?

[jbalcer]

Our gallery software does resize all images uploaded, and we've actually downsized the final image sizes several times in the past few years in efforts to reduce the server load. It is better if you resize before you upload ~ less time to send a smaller file. The white stuff around some uploads is from lack of cropping, and that is a lotta dead space. . . but the great majority of the uploads we get are nicely cropped.

As far as what's in your gallery already, I've asked Daven about the storage capacity before, and we do have a ton of space. (It may have changed since I last asked, so correct me if I'm wrong there, please.) What causes the sluggishness is the sheer number of people viewing the gallery. (Imagine all those people trying to get out of Houston right now. . . stuck on the highway, barely moving. . . that's the gallery during peak times!)

[lmstamper]

Thanks for the info! That is good to know.

[jbalcer]

Regarding size limit:

Quote:

4. Watch your FILE SIZE. Max size for the gallery is 640x480 pixels, but the gallery software will take care of that for you if you are unsure about reducing yourself. Mainly what you get through doing it yourself is shorter upload time (because the files are smaller when reduced). By tweaking the images yourself you also have to opportunity to do any color correction, cropping etc. that you want.

From this thread in the Announcement forum.