Userpics - help!

[hpaich]

I see all you guys posting these beautiful, bright, sharp userpics. When I do my own, they always look good, but when I upload them to LJ, they are automatically darker and fuzzier. Does anyone know why this happens? It's a little disappointing - I'm not doing tons of icons or anything, but I like to make a new one for myself now and again. I've

Comments

[alias_jems]

I find icons immediately look less sharp once saved. But I haven't noticed any loss of image quality when uploading to LJ.

What file type are you saving your images as? The best especially for small images like 100x100 pixel icons is a png file. It retains lots of information. Alternatively a jpeg saved to the maximum quality settings should retain enough too.

Are you suggesting that your icons look sharp in the image manipulation software and also when you preview the image - but that LJ seems to be downsizing them?

Maybe you could try uploading images elsewhere and linking them into an entry to compare the quality to an icon?

Or make a PSD file (if using Photoshop) and keep adding new layers and sharpening - each layer save as a new png file and you should see an increase in sharpness each time until it looks oversharpened - it would give you an idea how much sharpening is required for an image? You could try this for lightening too - add a layer on screen perhaps?

[alias_jems]

I have noticed colors don't look quite so bright too! I think image files always look better in PS as a PSD than saved ans anything else. I guess the quality is just lost in compression somewhat.

Hi btw! *waves* It's been ages since you updated - hope RL is treating you well hon!!

[hpaich]

Okay, that is the suck. I'll keep playing around, and then maybe my icons will look as bright and sharp as everyone else's. Thanks for the info - at least I know now that it's not just me!

[tempertemper]

I know it's obvious, but are you saving them as 100x100 before uploading, as if not, LJ resizes them and they fuzz out. I save all mine as highest qual Jpegs and they look fine... usually!

[hpaich]

That was the problem. I had them larger, and they were getting all cheesclothed when I uploaded them. Thank you! Much better now.

[tempertemper]

Oh yay, glad to help - I was doing the same thing when I first joined LJ. Took me ages to get it right!

[hpaich]

I know, I would have gone on forever like that if I didn't ask for help. I knew you guys could help me.