what are the dimension for a picture in in Pick of my Profile page?

[DenisePatiR]

what are the dimension for a picture in in Pick of my Profile page?

when I post a 800x600 image it gets stretched

 

[Rolig Loon]

What you are really asking for are aspect ratios.  That is, the ratio between the width and height of an image.  So, here they are ..........

• Search > Classifieds thumbnail - ~3:2 (101×69 pixels)
• Search > Classifieds expanded - ~4:3 (159×120 pixels)
• Search > Classifieds expanded > More Info - native aspect ratio
• Search > Destination Guide thumbnail - ~3:2 (101×69 pixels)
• Search > Destination Guide expanded - ~4:3 (159×120 pixels)
• Search > People - 1:1 (100×100 pixels)
• Search > Places expanded ~4:3 (159×120 pixels)
• Place Profile - ~3:2 (290×197 pixels)
• About Land > Options tab - ~4:3 (195×150 pixels)
• Profile > Picture - native aspect ratio; thumbnail cropped to 72×72 pixels; zoomed uncropped up to 300×300 pixels
• Profile > Real world picture - native aspect ratio; thumbnail cropped to 45×45 pixels; zoomed uncropped up to 300×300 pixels
• Profile > Picks thumbnail - 4:3 (60×45 pixels)
• Profile > Pick expanded - 4:3 (320×240 pixels)

[Tiziana Corleone]

I'm  not sure how these dimensions above were determined.  For a Profile Picture I've  taken an equilateral pic (512x512, etc.) and scaled it down to 133x133 since LL insists on forcing it into a 178x133 area and pasted it as a layer on a background of  178x133.  The dimensions of the original are preserved (see head shot 1).  For Pick Pictures, I found that a background of 266x133 with the original pic scaled to 133x133 preserves the proportions fairly well.  In the original pic, the head image is almost an equilateral triangle. The Pick Photo as uploaded has a 2:1 aspect ratio but when scrunched into the Pick photo frame (see my profile) my square image loses some of its width, so I guess I'll have to try different dimensions for my image.  I still don't see how an uploaded pic of 2:1 can retain any reasonable proportion in a 4:3 frame.  Any ideas ... anyone?

[Rolig Loon]

You have the right idea. When the image is uploaded into your profile, it isn't cropped to the final dimensions.  It is resized.  Knowing that, you have to use your image processing program (Photoshop or GIMP or whatever), to pre-scrunch (or pre-stretch) your image in the opposite direction.  You can either do that by changing the canvas size, as you have done by putting the photo on a black background, or you can stretch or scrunch the image itself.  When it's uploaded and resized, your pre-processing counterbalances it and the result looks right again.  All of these images are thumbnail sized, so the fact that we lose some resolution when we do this is less noticeable than it would be on larger images.

On 4/19/2019 at 6:15 AM, Tiziana Corleone said:

I'm  not sure how these dimensions above were determined. 

I don't think anyone knows.  That bit of arcane information is lost in the archives of Linden Lab.  Unless they decided in a totally arbitrary fashion, whoever designed the templates for each of the pages where our photos are displayed probably made them to fit around the text space available.  I suspect that the pages weren't all designed at the same time by the same graphic designer, so they all have different aspect ratios.  At least we have that table in the "Limits" page in the wiki to refer to, so we don't have to guess what the ratios are.

[Lindal Kidd]

Rolig's right...the key to getting nice images in SL is to understand that SL's automatic resizing algorithm does not do a very good job, so it's up to you to get the image into a form where SL can upload it WITHOUT having to re-size it.  That means that your uploaded image needs to have dimensions that are a power of 2, and should never be larger than 1024 pixels.

Let's say I want to upload a picture with a 4:3 aspect ratio, the dimensions of a 35mm photograph.  Here's my procedure.

1. Open the original image in Photoshop or GIMP.
2. Crop the image, if needed, to get a 4:3 aspect ratio.  My usual procedure for this is probably a lot clunkier than it needs to be, but I open a new blank 4:3 image, then copy the original and paste it in, then scale as needed to get it to fit.
3. Perform any adjustments...brightness, contrast, add filters, etc.
4. Here's the key step:  RESIZE the image so it's a square, or at least has sides that are dimensioned as a power of 2.  For example, resize to a 512 x 512 pixel image.  This will "squish" the image, but that's OK for now.
5. Save the squished image as a JPEG or PNG file.
6. Upload the file to SL.
7. Paste the image into any Profile area needing a 4:3 format.  It will automatically un-squish and look perfect.  The same goes if I'm using it on a prim billboard or something...create a prim of the correct aspect ratio, say 4m x 3m, and slap the image onto it as a texture.

[SusanPoora]

On 5/13/2019 at 10:30 PM, Lindal Kidd said:

Rolig's right...the key to getting nice images in SL is to understand that SL's automatic resizing algorithm does not do a very good job, so it's up to you to get the image into a form where SL can upload it WITHOUT having to re-size it.  That means that your uploaded image needs to have dimensions that are a power of 2, and should never be larger than 1024 pixels.

Let's say I want to upload a picture with a 4:3 aspect ratio, the dimensions of a 35mm photograph.  Here's my procedure.

1. Open the original image in Photoshop or GIMP.
2. Crop the image, if needed, to get a 4:3 aspect ratio.  My usual procedure for this is probably a lot clunkier than it needs to be, but I open a new blank 4:3 image, then copy the original and paste it in, then scale as needed to get it to fit.
3. Perform any adjustments...brightness, contrast, add filters, etc.
4. Here's the key step:  RESIZE the image so it's a square, or at least has sides that are dimensioned as a power of 2.  For example, resize to a 512 x 512 pixel image.  This will "squish" the image, but that's OK for now.
5. Save the squished image as a JPEG or PNG file.
6. Upload the file to SL.
7. Paste the image into any Profile area needing a 4:3 format.  It will automatically un-squish and look perfect.  The same goes if I'm using it on a prim billboard or something...create a prim of the correct aspect ratio, say 4m x 3m, and slap the image onto it as a texture.

Thank you so much!

[Christina Halpin]

We do not need to pre-scrunch a picture. I am guessing the my viewer's picks pictures are presented as 9 by 16, so I upload a picture with those dimensions. My understanding from reading this thread, is that SL scrunches it into a square for storage, then unscrunches it for display in the 9 by 16. I didn't know and still don't care how pictures are stored. (I have uploaded hundreds of pictures and can tell when art is misproportioned)

Edited September 9, 2022 by Christina Halpin
grammar

[Qie Niangao]

34 minutes ago, Christina Halpin said:

We do not need to pre-scrunch a picture. I am guessing the my viewer's picks pictures are presented as 9 by 16, so I upload a picture with those dimensions. My understanding from reading this thread, is that SL scrunches it into a square for storage, then unscrunches it for display in the 9 by 16. I didn't know and still don't care how pictures are stored. (I have uploaded hundreds of pictures and can tell when art is misproportioned)

This is a pretty old thread, but to clarify: stored images aren't necessarily square, but they are always changed at upload to fit dimensions that are powers of 2, e.g. 512x1024. Because 1024 is as large as it gets, higher resolution images will tend to get squashed down to 1024x1024 for storage. The thing is, that automated resizing is "good" but not "great"—it's possible to get better results doing it manually in a 2D graphics program.

Pixel proportions are another matter, and you're right: they look best when the aspect ratio of the image display area (e.g., pictures in Profile Picks) match the aspect ratio of the unresized image, regardless of how it gets "scrunched" for internal storage.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, Christina Halpin said:

We do not need to pre-scrunch a picture. I am guessing the my viewer's picks pictures are presented as 9 by 16, so I upload a picture with those dimensions. My understanding from reading this thread, is that SL scrunches it into a square for storage, then unscrunches it for display in the 9 by 16. I didn't know and still don't care how pictures are stored. (I have uploaded hundreds of pictures and can tell when art is misproportioned)

The pre-scrunching explained by Lindal relates to visual artifacts from images getting resized, as in significant loss in quality. I don't think it's very relevant anymore (if it ever was for large images displayed in smaller areas).

The original question by Tiziana relates to the inconsistent image areas that are used to display the image. Your 16:9 image would look distorted in a 159x120 display unless you pre-scrunched it to the matching aspect ratio.

Edited September 9, 2022 by Wulfie Reanimator