Re: Questions About Snapsot Resolutions

[Perrie Juran]

When taking snapshots we are given several options for how to save them.  We have JPG, PNG & BMP.  Their is also an option in the advanced menu, "save high resolution."  

Because I take a lot of snapshots I always save to disc.  I will later on upload as needed.

So I was comparing file sizes between regular and high res and they are virtually identical using an identical pose.

Also, as I visually browsed through them with my picture viewer I could see no apparent difference.  I also did some pictures in medium, high and ultra graphics setting in the viewer.  Still no visibly noticeable difference.

I have a 17" note book with dedicated graphics and my screen is rated 1080i.  In other words I get a pretty sharp picture on this machine.

So I'm wondering what's going on.  What is the advantage of choosing save high res?  Etc, Etc.

Or will I only see a difference if I have an ultra high end computer and a 30" monitor?

Thanks

 

[Void Singer]

"high resolution" snapshots is an old setting, that's pretty much useless now that we can specify size and format (used to be itw was the only way to get large sizes, or lossless bmp rather than jpg)

be very careful with it because it's bugged for most people and cause the snapshot images that are saved to be off center (by about 1/4 to 1/3 of the screen size) from the original view you were trying to capture.... there's a jira on it, but I don't know that anyone ever bothered fixing it with the new snapshot interface available

[Wildcat Furse]

I always take PNG snapshots in below viewer settings, I prefer high resolution shots because it gives more processing window afterwards, I use a laptop with these specs (i5-GT330-8GB mem with a 27" LCD attached), each snapshot saved on my HDD is about 1.5MB *meows*

[Perrie Juran]

Most of my snapshots are averaging 1.25mb.  I save PNG also.  What puzzled me the most was as I moved through the different graphic settings, low, medium, high, ultra,  toggling off and on the save high res in advanced menu, I was seeing no change in the saved file size.  Nor visually any difference on my lap top.

My lap top is not as high end as yours but it is a better than average machine:

CPU: Intel® Core2 Duo CPU     T7100  @ 1.80GHz (1795.58 MHz)
Memory: 4092 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit Service Pack 2 (Build 6002)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 8400M GT/PCI/SSE2
Windows Graphics Driver Version: 7.15.0011.0117
OpenGL Version: 2.1.1

 

Thank you for posting that screen shot.

[Perrie Juran]

I havn't had the 'off center' problem.  I remember reading about it.

I guess in one sense that is part of my question.  This setting in the advanced menu appears to do nothing.

[Void Singer]

the only things that should really affect the snapshot size are the format, and the dimensions... higher video settings should actually lower lossy format save sizes, since they'd include more blending... but the main thing is the pixel count.

[Torley Linden]

Yay this way!

[Rhonda Huntress]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

I save PNG also.  What puzzled me the most was as I moved through the different graphic settings, low, medium, high, ultra,  toggling off and on the save high res in advanced menu, I was seeing no change in the saved file size.  Nor visually any difference on my lap top.

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If you are saving as PNG or BMP, the only thing that will affect the filesize is the number of pixels.  Jpeg is the only one that offers compression but it also comes with image degradation as a result.

[Torley Linden]

I'd recommend saving as PNG because it's lossless and relatively compact — stay away from BMP unless you have a special reason, it's an old format that eats up unnecessary disk space. As Rhonda pointed out, JPG has image degradation, so avoid that too. You can always convert PNG to JPG; some sites like Flickr can do it automatically. And PNG is also web-friendly.

As has been correctly and thoughtfully been pointed out, "High Resolution" is a defective feature riddled with subtle and annoying bugs that haven't been high-priority or straightforward enough to fix. Its functionality over time has been limited due to other changes. For example, High Resolution (4x what you see on the screen in the Viewer window) used to include antialiasing, but that caused problems with snapshotting water. So now the edges are fully jagged, even if you have antialiasing on.

Always, always check your first few snapshots in a session after taking them. Leave a window on your desktop (or app like Picasa) open showing pics in thumbnail mode so you can pop them open and be assured they're not turning out black.

[Wildcat Furse]

I second this Torley ...... :smileywink: *meows*