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MartytheBioGuy
2010-05-13, 06:25 PM
Hi, I'm a newbie to the whole forum scene, but I have an OotS style drawing on my computer that I would like to turn into an avatar. It is in .jpg format, 118x120 pixels.

Serpentine
2010-05-14, 02:41 AM
If it's already done and, importantly, you made it yourself, just upload it (I use photobucket, but others use imageshack), get the url, and use it. There's a stickied guide in the Board Issues subforum.

Mina Kobold
2010-05-14, 02:47 AM
If it's already done and, importantly, you made it yourself, just upload it (I use photobucket, but others use imageshack), get the url, and use it. There's a stickied guide in the Board Issues subforum.

What she said, but I'd like to add that most people seem to prefer .png instead of .jpg.


I don't know if it's important, though. :smallsmile:

Serpentine
2010-05-14, 02:52 AM
I use .gif. I think the main concern is transparency.

MartytheBioGuy
2010-05-14, 04:04 AM
Well, I'm not worried, because I know mine's going to look cheap. I hope to improve, but this is what I've got for now. Thanks, guys!

Keris
2010-05-14, 04:05 AM
What she said, but I'd like to add that most people seem to prefer .png instead of .jpg.
JPEG is a lossy format, each time you open, edit and save a JPEG file it compresses it, which results in the loss of information and the appearance of artefacts. PNG files are lossless, so they can restore the original data exactly, but this can easily result in an increased filesize. Lossless image formats are best when you have blocks of the same colour and sharp edges, like with text or lineart, or just don't want any loss in quality.


I use .gif. I think the main concern is transparency.
GIF and PNG both support transparency, but PNG uses an alpha channel and GIF denotes a particular shade as a "background colour" to be rendered transparent. This means that GIF files are unable to display partial transparency, which can result in a "white border" when a GIF file is placed on a different background.
PNG also uses a better compression, but GIF limits itself to a palette of 256 colours, so PNG files with a large number of colours (like subtle gradients) will be larger. However, GIF files attempting to display a gradient may result in banding.
The issue with PNG was, and to a lesser degree is, a lack of support. Internet Explorer historically didn't support the PNG format, and still doesn't support all it's features.

Basically, if it's an image with a lot of colours, such as a digital photo, use JPEG. If it's animated, use GIF (since APNG has very little browser support, and MNG even less). If it's got fairly large number of colours and no partial transparency (so no anti-aliasing on a transparent border), consider GIF. Otherwise, use PNG. :smallsmile:

MartytheBioGuy
2010-05-14, 04:21 AM
Well, this is no good! I set up a photobucket account, uploaded the picture, and now the forum is saying that I'm typing it in the wrong format, even though it starts with http:// and ends with .jpg!

MartytheBioGuy
2010-05-14, 04:26 AM
Nevermind! It worked!!! Thanks, everyone! :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin: