Question about Multitool.org

[King_Gorilla]

If there is a better place on this website where I could have asked this question, then I am sorry.  I look around and this seemed the most appropriate spot.

I love MTO.  I spend a lot of time on here reading forum posts and leaving forum posts.  I personally feel like practically all forum posts are greatly improved by pictures.  To that end, I try to put pictures on all of my posts.  So I am asking, Is there ANY way that we can change the maximum kb requirements to upload pictures???      

I have a 19 mega pixel camera on my phone and it's not even a new phone.  This thing is 2 years old now. (ancient by modern phone standards)  So when I take a picture of whatever knife or multi tool that I am trying to share or talk about, the files are usually about 4 to 6 MB each!  It is extremely time consuming to get these pictures down to the minuscule 512kb maximum required to post on the forum.  I have used a number of online file shrinking sites.  Some work better than others.  Most will shrink your pictures down to around 90% of what they were when you uploaded.  That is still usually about 800KB!  Way too big to upload to the forum.   

I am computer proficient but I am by no means a tech guy, I don't know if there is some easy fix that I am missing.  If so, please let me know.  Does anyone else have a massive problem uploading pictures on here???  Is there any way Multitool.org can simply raise that maximum kb number to about 1100kb?  because it would be REALLY helpful. 

[RF52]

The last pic I uploaded through tapatalk was 3 MB and that wasn't a problem.

Sent fra min FRD-L09 via Tapatalk

[Don Pablo]

I shrunk this 12MP photo to 3MP. 3150kB to 395 kB.



You simply don't need that many pixels if the important part of the photo takes up most of them.

[Don Pablo]

The last pic I uploaded through tapatalk was 3 MB and that wasn't a problem.

Sent fra min FRD-L09 via Tapatalk

Tapatalk resizes them and puts them on their own servers, not MTO. It's like photobucket in that regard.

[Douglas]

I shrunk this 12MP photo to 3MP. 3150kB to 395 kB.

(Image removed from quote.)

You simply don't need that many pixels if the important part of the photo takes up most of them.

Great shot Pabs but I'm with KG, what did you use to do that,  was it an app and if so what app?  What was the procedure you you used, etc...?

[enki_ck]

You're approaching the problem from the wrong side. The problem is your phone being set to take pics in a too high resolution for a internet forum, or any online site.
Go to your phone camera and reduce the size to 4, 5 even 10 Mp will be better. Or use an online picture hosting site and just post picture links here that will show up as pictures. FLICKR, IMGUR, ...

Pictures take up server space, server space costs money, big pictures cost big money, and we have hundreds of thousands of pictures hosted here, gigabytes upon gigabytes of pictures. Which make big databases that need backing up, costing even more money. So ... although your question might seem like a small request to you, it's actually a pretty substantial and pricy one.

[Don Pablo]

Great shot Pabs but I'm with KG, what did you use to do that,  was it an app and if so what app?  What was the procedure you you used, etc...?

https://picresize.com/
Get it down to 2000x1500 pixels, then set a size limit (400kB) for the compression algorithm.


I could set my phone to 3MP, but it adds a bunch of fancy smurf that makes the filesize too big, so I'd have to use the pic resizer to strip that out, anyway.

[King_Gorilla]

Tapatalk resizes them and puts them on their own servers, not MTO. It's like photobucket in that regard.

I am trying to avoid using a service like photobucket or Tapatalk. 

Don Pablo, What did you use to shrink that picture you posted above? 
I usually just attach my pictures with the provided attachment option under the rectangle where you type each post.   

[SteveC]

There is an app I use called Photo and picture resizer . Really easy to use on my phone.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplemobilephotoresizer

[RF52]

Tapatalk resizes them and puts them on their own servers, not MTO. It's like photobucket in that regard.

Did not know that, thanks
Explains why I have no problems

Sent fra min FRD-L09 via Tapatalk

[enki_ck]

I am trying to avoid using a service like photobucket or Tapatalk. 

Don Pablo, What did you use to shrink that picture you posted above? 
I usually just attach my pictures with the provided attachment option under the rectangle where you type each post.   

he already answered that, there were a lot of posts at once in this thread, read back a bit.

Also, I moved the thread to the q&a board.

[Aloha]

I used to have issues now I resize on my computer to 25 percent of the original.  I use a Mac if the makes a difference? 

[King_Gorilla]

You're approaching the problem from the wrong side. The problem is your phone being set to take pics in a too high resolution for a internet forum, or any online site.
Go to your phone camera and reduce the size to 4, 5 even 10 Mp will be better. Or use an online picture hosting site and just post picture links here that will show up as pictures. FLICKR, IMGUR, ...

Reducing the file size by adjusting the camera resolution was actually the first thing I tried.  The options seem to be 15mp 17mp or 19mp.  However I am looking online now, and a website im looking at is talking about another way to adjust the settings manually.  But the instructions don't seem to match what I am seeing.  Anyway, work in progress. 

I don't want to use a picture hosting site. 

[Don Pablo]

I am trying to avoid using a service like photobucket or Tapatalk. 

Don Pablo, What did you use to shrink that picture you posted above? 
I usually just attach my pictures with the provided attachment option under the rectangle where you type each post.   

As for what I use, already answered.
I then download the shrunk pic, and attach them the same way you do, with the attachment button.

[SteveC]

Reducing the file size by adjusting the camera resolution was actually the first thing I tried.  The options seem to be 15mp 17mp or 19mp.  However I am looking online now, and a website im looking at is talking about another way to adjust the settings manually.  But the instructions don't seem to match what I am seeing.  Anyway, work in progress. 

I don't want to use a picture hosting site.

The answer to your problem is the app I posted a link to. It doesn't get any easier than that. Trust me I tried 

[microbe]

Why don't you want to use a image hosting site if I may ask? Imgur has privacy settings so only you can see your images and only you decide who you share them with, for example on MTO. Look at them as a free backup. And it allows you to use larger sized images than when you store them on the MTO servers, and you keep MTO's hosting bill lower. If you love MTO, you use an image hosting website.

[King_Gorilla]

Why don't you want to use a image hosting site if I may ask? Imgur has privacy settings so only you can see your images and only you decide who you share them with, for example on MTO. Look at them as a free backup. And it allows you to use larger sized images than when you store them on the MTO servers, and you keep MTO's hosting bill lower. If you love MTO, you use an image hosting website.

", and you keep MTO's hosting bill lower. "   well, that is a good point.

To answer your question, I have had some issues with photobucket, and other image sharing sites in the past.  Just got to the point where I said "im done" and never looked back.  Also,  It is common on many forums, (not just MTO) where you will be reading a great thread about something really interesting and then for various reasons you run into the "photo not found" garbage, or the various other issues.  Nothing worse than having no clue what the people are talking about because you cant see their pictures any longer.

[microbe]

Photobucket.
 
 Nuff said.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Photobucket sucks and has burned me badly enough that I wouldn't want to use another photo hosting site either.  They can all go smurf themselves sideways.

The MTO Gallery is one option, but the software is old, and hasn't been supported by the developer for a long time and so it isn't a great option either.

Enki hit the nail on the head though- it all boils down to server space, and we already have a gigantic database to look after.  We have over 13 years of photos stored on the server because I hate the idea of purging old photos like most forums do- since we are the only site of this type out there, if we purge the photos of rare tools, they may never be seen again.

I use an app called Image Shrink on my tablet and phone to reduce the size of images, and I use Outlook or Paint to reduce the size of photos on my computer.  I'd still like to develop a new MTO gallery at some point, but we aren't there just yet.

Def

[Whoey]

Yep, it's a space issue, if we bump the limit I give it about a week before the server falls over due to disk space being full, in fact, we've hit our current limit a few times due to other things left unchecked. One thing our current package doesn't have is flexible storage, if we bump the package up to the next level we gain resources across the board (CPU/RAM/storage/bandwidth) and the storage increase would be 33% bigger than we have but would still fill up pretty quick.

Actually something really has to be done about the pics, the way the forum stores them is not great, and really hard to manage, and I haven't had time to implement a few other things that would free up some space... I'm open to ideas and suggestions, but like Grant I really don't like the idea of external services hosting them as they may cut off on a whim like photobucket did.

If I get some time to put something in place by all means we will change the limits accordingly.

[enki_ck]

Honestly, the high rez pics aren't needed for most of the pics we need and share here.

One of my favorite posters and one who's indebted the forum for years to come with his contributions and pictures, Coloswiss, always used 640x480p pics and they were good enough for all of us. I shrink all sakwiki pics to 1000p as the wiki doesn't have an autosize, so I doubt we need 6000p pics to show one's SAK next to a lego figurine And the pages will load up faster and scroll more smoothly even on a weak mobile network that way