Three sorts of limitations apply:
1) Size: images on the front page are limited to a total width of 505 pixels and should not be taller than about half of that. Images inside a story should not be wider than 800 pixels and no taller than 600. This is to preserve the accessibility of the site for people using smaller monitors. Even those sizes are too large for mobil devices but in the future we will have software in place to shrink or block images that are too big for phones or tablets.
2) File Size: Teaser Images (Images at the top of stories and Title Pages) should not be larger than 50k unless a high level of detail is needed. Images larger than 100k will likely be reduced by our volunteers. We currently consider 30k-75k to be the "sweet spot", this is due to the fact that not everyone has a high speed broadband internet connection. Some of our users still use dial-up, low speed satellite and some are just visiting us over slower transcontinental interconnect links. PLEASE be polite to your readers and take this into account. Images inside a story can be as large as 400k without prior approval, but PLEASE take in to account download times for slower users when making such decisions.
3) Using copyrighted images that belong to someone else is a copyright violation and can get the images taken down if someone complains. I don't police this, I just react to complaints. And there are fair use considerations, if the image is altered enough to be considered a new work but I have to err on the side of the complainant in the case of possible copyright infringement.
4) I don't consider the use of X and XXX rated art or photographs to be appropriate to the mission of this site. Nudity, even nudes in loving embrace, is no more than R or A rating but intercourse complete with fluids and genitalia is definite XXX stuff. It doesn't belong here, plenty of other sites for that kind of thing. Even worse if it is photographs and triple worse if any of the participants even appear to be underage. Don't go there. Since our servers are in the US we are under the most liberal of obscenity laws as long as things are just text. Add images and people visiting the site in some states and in many other places outside the US could get into trouble.
Too many violations of these limitations will force me to restrict access to using images in stories, blogs, etc. to people who prove that they can do so responsibly. And please, don't even upload such images to your folders, even if you are not using them in posts. BC is a story site and stories come first.
Hugs to all,
Erin
images and use
Erin has posted this guideline before as many of us know.
For myself, all images I am or have used in my stories are licensed for such use and I have paid a premium to obtain that license.
I have gone to many of the "free" sites but have not found what I wanted at them despite the many thousands of images available. Two of the images in stories I have written but not posted here I purchased outright in the form of oils and then digitized same for use in my stories.
I know that is an expense many (should probably read that as most all) cannot shoulder but still there are many images out there which are applicable as frequently seen and those images are either not copyrighted (few and far between) or are public domain or cheaply licensed. It isn't necessary to spend hundreds of dollars to obtain an image when there are many out there which can be licensed for less than two.
Good Luck everyone... You needn't be as extravigent as I have been but then I selected images and licenses which I could use if I elected to publish the story as a print or for sale item.
Copyright free images
It used to cost as little as a dollar to get a picture from IstockPhoto, but I now find they cost as much as $40, and the cheap web sizes are gone. Instead I suggest using Google to search for creative commons (non copyright) images. There is also a site called CCSearch, but I have seen their beta version, and if they implement it, it sucks. So use Google.
To do this, you have to go to Google images. Select Advanced Search under Settings. This will allow you to restrict your search to images of a suitable size, but I don't use it, but resize in Photoshop later. Near the bottom of the page you will find Usage Rights. I choose the option Free to Use, Share, and Modify, since I always make a composite. If you are making something for Amazon, then you should use Free to Use, Share, and Modify, even Commercially.
Once you click this setting, any image you see will fit this creative commons (non-copyright) status and can be used safely.
Dawn
I am running afoul of this
but only because of image file sizes not picture presentation sizes in pixels. I currently pick 800 x 600pixel sized model pictures for licensing for the characters and then either crop, transparentize/crop/and shrink, or crop and shrink the image based on how it is to be used in the teaser and story.
I choose that size since it is easily publishable, maintains high quality in epub/.pdf inserts and for paperback book form. From that size I can insert text or other writing and then physically resize the picture down and crop it if need be. You can only make a good picture by shrinking down - never by blowing up to work on it.
It is not the picture size that is the issue, I have always tried to stay in bounds of that.
It is that some of pictures, especially transparentized ones I have to create, that take up more file size space because it takes something to blank out what I need gone from the image. I can get the file sizes down to between 200 - 300k. I will have to have Cat or Erin spot fix them for me since I cannot get the file size space the image takes up down any further without compromising the texture, shading, sharpness, and color temperature of the picture (at least I do not know yet how to do so), and they have a way.
Not all the images I use are transparentized either (roughly 40% are). I only use it where I need the model, but not the background. To make the character match the story and not let the background (which doesn't fit the story) throw off the image.
That is the only reason I have run afoul of this.
And I do not use sex images. BCTS is not a sex site. I use models for the characters, fully licensed, and most definitively - not in any way vulgar, obscene nor sexually suggestive (the vulgarity Erin described.)
I work professionally with the authors I contract with to get their works formatted good and publishable ready. I work and exist to work with the authors. My goal is to prod authors to publish their works.
To all the authors I work and post for, just understand I may have to change formatting styles now and may have to use 2 teasers: one for the front page box and insert another teaser heading just inside the story page window. I am not sure how I may be having to change things.
Just, now, they have to and just for story teasers on the front page.
Someone went crazy with a large image...
and now I and many others who have been trying to do the right thing have to pay the price.
I will try and see what I am able to do.
I apologize on behalf of everyone whose works are about to be affected in future postings starting today.
I wish I could have spotted the person who posted that huge picture first and did something about it then! I failed everyone on BCTS by not being here and not spotting it. If I had caught it and done something right then, we may not be here now :(
There is no excuse for me.
Sephrena
Hi Sephrena
You might take a look at ( Irfanview ).
It can't do a lot of what you are saying you do with your pics but it has a resizing option which allows you to pick the pixel count (vertical or horizontal) and if you have the "maintain aspect ratio" box checked it will automatically size the other dimension for you.
I agree, sizing up is not a good idea and most of the images I have licensed are 4000+ by 3000+ sizes (give or take a bit) so sizing down isn't much of a problem.
I would suggest, if you have never used Irfanview, play with it a bit to see what it can do (quite a bit actually). Once you have what you want then you could use Irfanview to create the final image.
BE CAREFUL though....... Don't save over your original work.
I have irfanview and photoshop
and irfanview tears up the quality I want present in the images I use :( It was best noted when I first started using graphic scene dividers within my postings of author's works. It literally gouged the quality of the dividers and made the dividers look grainy even using the best resizing settings. I had to go out and get photoshop. I could not escape that.
I use adobe photoshop exclusively now.
All the images I do now since February of this year are backed up in both .jpeg, .png, and .psd format so I can go back and redo the images. Images I had gotten before February 2013, I had not done that. :(
And a side note: I do pay for all the images for the authors I work with. I go out, sample them and get the author's approval, and I buy them for the author. So I do expect to try and keep the quality of the images I hunt for.
I also pour my life into the images I post. I spend ghastly amounts of time searching for just the right image for the character(s) of the story I am working on. I have had image searches take me upwards of 30 some hours for finding just the right one I wanted. I look for the expressions, character face, the attitude they convey in the picture, and just the right amount of either boyishness or girlishness to pass the way they are supposed to be in the story. It takes a lot to balance out these qualities to find the model I want for a particular story.
Quality matters to me first and foremost regardless of picture size.
Same for stories.
Sephrena
Adobe Photoshop - Save For Web
For Transparencies, always use PNG not GIF for best quality, and since you have Adobe Photoshop....
Photoshop has this GREAT feature "Save for Web"
It does a great job of web-optimizing the color pallet, and shrinking the image with as little image destruction as possible.
We have no issues with giving Authors larger versions of images to use on other projects, we just ask that the ones used in teasers be smaller file sizes.
When I do artwork for authors, I always provide Print Ready graphics, and Web Ready Graphics versions of every item, that way they can do whatever they want with it, with little issues.
Don't forget, re-sizing an image using HTML tags, does NOTHING to the file size that the reader has to download to view the image, it just makes it "look" smaller on the page.
-Piper
I do use "Save For Web" - Always!
The file size AFTER Save for Web is Still too huge for Erin!
That is after I do my work to it, crop, Resize physically down beyond that, and save for web as .png-24 for the transparencies and .jpeg for where I can get away with it.
My image file sizes are in the 160-350 kb range using that - depending on transparency or not. That is still too huge according to Erin. So I will ask her and Cat to do whatever it is they do to compress the file size further.
Do remember, I select high quality images so that minute details - shading, texture, and color temperatures can be seen. Too much compression and Im throwing my money away for nothing because it wont be seen.
These sizes were not a problem before, but now they are. So I will let Erin and Cat do what they need to for it for my images.
It is far easier to checkbox into peoples account to turn off images so they can view BCTS on mobile devices without images eating their bandwidth and get fast speeds, in my opinion, than to tinker with every individual image. That way, people who use large tablets, netbooks, notebooks, and desktops can enjoy the presentation the way it was meant to be seen and read, rather than a barebones one that mobile users can access without images without breaking their data limits.
What separates us from the other tg fiction sites is the imagery and ability to play with the html to display what each author wants. By forcing the whole site to be compliant with mobile devices and destroy that uniqueness is taking us down to be just like everyone else.
We should stand above the rest!
One fallback measure I can also contemplate can be to do away with teasers for the front page entirely! Just have quickcuts and 100 slots open for it. Then people can click on the quickcut link and be brought to the story page with the teaser at the top!
Then mobile users cannot complain about data if they want to choose to open the story they want to view.
Sephrena
Save For Web Hint
Sephrena, if you go to the bottom right part of the Save for web box you can constrain the proportions of an image and start scaling back on the size. If you have it set to preview as soon as you leave that box it'll give you an estimated size at the bottom of the save for web box. You can also go up and change the quality manually to a lower setting until the image is the size you want. It's pretty flexible if you know which settings to play with there. I also find that if you rasterize all layers, and them merge all layers before doing that you may get crisper images in the long run. Just make sure not to save over your working psd file after you do that or you lose your editing ability.
I want your images at the same resolution you create them at.
BCTS size limitations, be damned.
I don't mean ignore BCTS limit size limitations.
I mean, obey the restrictions, but provide a link to an offsite file host, and you can also use an archiving tool, I recommend:
7-Zip - Archiving Utility
I don't need to care about file size, but I have high Speed broadband (150 Mbit/s = 18.75 MB/s). So for direct image links, or if the site allows the reduced quality image to contain a hyperlink, to the full sized version (Don't think that's possible with BCTS though), I recommend:
Imgur - Free Image Hosting Site
Hosting for any file type, but I recommend this is only used for archives of those files, which reduces download size, while retaining the full quality of the extracted comtents (*.7z, *.rar, *.zip, etc.), I recommend:
Mega - File Hosting Site
Note: Mega provide 15 GB free (50 GB if you made an account before 2018, as I have) indefinitely, and temp increases for doing things like downloading App, referrals, etc.), that's per email account, not person. so you can open multiple accounts if required
Other hosts exist, those are just what I usually use, with my game modding guides and tutorials, mainly I use Imgur for hosting images linked from forum posts where I'm trying to help other users, and the forums got size limitations, like BCTS, and use Mega for archived content.
As I tend to use free open source alternatives, and have seen another user suggest IrfanView, as an alternative to Photoshop, I must strongly disagree, I've used IrfanView, for many years, as a simple image viewer, but not for editing, it's way too basic for that.
There's only one Open Source alternative to Photoshop, I can recommend:
GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program
No other free open source utility, comes close to Photoshop, and while those used to Photoshop's way of doing things, might find GIMP does things differently, it can pretty much do everything Photoshop can, and has a large choice of plugins, to expand the already extensive functionality.
Likewise there's only one open source, alternative, to using MS Office, I will recommend:
LibreOffice - Free Office Suite
LibreOffice is basically the entire open source dev community, that created OpenOffice, when Apache bought OpenOffice, and compromised is open source licencing, LibreOffice was forked off, it has been constantly improved, while OpenOffice has stagnated.
It provides pretty much the same feature set of MS Office, but operates differently, more like the pre "Ribbon" MS office.
Also uses the Open Document File Format, which is open source, of course, it can open, and save MS Office format, but as those are closed source formats, it may not look exactly the same, i just open them, but save an Open Document Formatted version, to use.
Dark Elven Sissy Slut – Uhuru N’Uru
Erin, Piper, Sephrena and the
other moderators have given us a great place here at BigCloset/TopShelf. The Rules are simple and just. Thank you for your sacrifices and help.
May Your Light Forever Shine