No, this isn't a rant about how the maximum entry dimensions should be larger (but I'm sure someone will bring it up anyway).
C'mon people, use those pixels! Lately I'm seeing an annoyingly large number of images in the challenges that don't use the maximum number of pixels in at least one dimension. Not only does it annoy me, but it brings your score down.
If you need help, you can start here. Note that the linked tutorial assumes that the max size is 640px for all challenges. That is no longer true. If you are submitting to an Advanced Editing challenge please use the full 720!
I typically use 704 instead of 720 pixels because, from my camera, that is an even 25% scaling/resampling, and I think I have a better chance of retaining detail if I don't force the use of "fractional pixels" in making the calculations. I could add an 8-pixel border if that would help ... ;-)
Also, I somtimes trade off pixels for an increase in JPEG quality, and I often make portrait-oriented images less than "full height" so more people (including myself) can see it without scrolling.
Whatever works for you, but I'll still vote 'em down. I'd much rather see a full size image with slightly less detail, and I'm sorry you have such a tiny monitor. :(
Speaking of less detail, do you really think that you get noticeably more using the methods that you mentioned? I'd love to see a comparison. There have been times, I'll admit, when I had an image that suffered in the conversion to JPEG that I thought about making smaller, but in the end it always looked better at max size.
... and I'm sorry you have such a tiny monitor. :(
Speaking of less detail, do you really think that you get noticeably more using the methods that you mentioned?
Yeah, me too. When I get back from work I'll try to find a suitable test image and post comparative samples; maybe one image with the two samples side-by-side.
Would you rather compare unadjusted resized images only, or with typical color/tone adjustments and sharpening, like a "finished" entry?
