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Avatar Size!?

Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:11 am
by omniuni
I would like to suggest making the avatars up to 120x120 pixels, and up to 40kb in size.

Please?

Maybe even keeping the 80x80 and just letting them go up to 16kb?

My avatar looks so ugly as a JPEG with compression set to 46/100.

I would much rather it be a nice PNG.

P.S. I left it open for two votes, so that if you don't really care, but you have an opinion, you can identify your option.
P.P.S. No offense meant to .NET developers. It's just a joke.

Re: Avatar Size!?

Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 8:21 pm
by omniuni
No one else is miffed by the inability to have avatars that are even a bit better? Maybe someone can offer me advice on making my avatar look a bit less compressed?

Re: Avatar Size!?

Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:52 pm
by pickle
It's a huge tradeoff between usability and making your avatar pretty. Larger physical dimensions could change the layout of the page and allow for less actual content on a given window. A larger filesize would result in it taking longer to serve up the page - resulting in more work for the server and longer download times.

You are free to have a PNG avatar - you don't need to use JPG.

You should add another poll option: Leave it as is.

Re: Avatar Size!?

Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:02 pm
by Eran
I don't have qualms about increasing the filesize a bit, 4kb is really pushing it and bandwidth is the cheapest thing in a hosting package. Not to mention this site is very low on bandwidth - predominantly textual information. I think the current dimensions are sufficient.

Re: Avatar Size!?

Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:15 pm
by matthijs
The current size should be fine I think. The fact that this forum is fast loading is a big plus to me. I wouldn't want that to be diminished because some people want bigger avatars.

Which reminds me, maybe I should have one too..

Re: Avatar Size!?

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:49 pm
by omniuni
I don't mind the physical size. But 6kb? I tried using a PNG, and it won't fit. I had to make a JPEG and compress it a lot to make the file small enough to upload. Strange as it may seem, I actually kind of like the avatars enough in that they tell me some about the people on the site, that I think we should at least have a few extra kb for them.

Re: Avatar Size!?

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 3:44 pm
by allenmcalister
I am so happy that they dont have flashy ones. I mean like the ones that move. (.gif) Those things drive me nuts.
I use 60x60 pix avatar, it works ok for me. :D

Re: Avatar Size!?

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:08 pm
by kaszu
My avatar is transparent PNG, using photoshop I could get it under 6kb without loosing much of the quality.
I don't think avatars are important enough to sacrifice loading time, even if it's less than a second.