I was concerned about both loading time, and total server storage considerations, when someone first proposed having avatars. I run on a dial-up service, over a less than wonderful phone line. I get, at best, a 26,000 bps rate.
I threw the Bubba/Dubya up pretty fast after scanning it. I had noticed that it was less than 100k, so I thought, OK.
With jpeg's, it's somewhat of an art form, getting a balance between quality and small file size. The first version ran 89k. It was scanned and posted at a resolution of 300 per inch, at a fairly high jpeg quality factor. I tried resampling it to 150 per inch, keeping the same jpeg quality factor - it came out too bad.
Ultimately, I kept the resolution at 300 per inch, and cut the jpeg quality factor back as much as possible. The result is the current 34k version. The quality is pretty close to the original.
The Bubba/Dubya's quantity text placed a greater legibility consideration on it. Had it had no text, I probibly could have cut back the file size evern more.
A side note to crashfrog. Your avatar is just fine - Maybe one of the best. The other night I downloaded it, and played with changing the "Road Frog" to "Crash Frog" (might have been at it about 1/2 to 1 hour). I got to having a pretty good result, and was in the process of trying to some how reduce the text width (one more letter, you know), when Coral Paint crashed on me. Doh, I hadn't done a save.
Cheers,
Moose
Note by edit: Went back to "WWWD?" avatar, 12:30 pm, 8/26/03
[This message has been edited by minnemooseus, 08-26-2003]
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