Firestorm Viewer is cropping profile pictures in new update.

[Perrie Juran]

19 hours ago, Count Burks said:

21 hours ago, Perrie Juran said:

Then first of all why the accusatory subject title if it is a Linden Lab problem??

Because I am a Firestorm Viewer user. The Firestorm viewer is the one who is doing the cropping for "me". 

What you said was "If Linden Lab feels it is fantastic to halve people's user profile images and crop them into stamps there is no point in bug reporting this," and if Chaser is a FS DEV then it looks like they are trying to do their best to deal with it.

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

1 hour ago, Chaser Zaks said:

FS developer / bug hunter here:

[snipped rest, but it was some great info]

Thanks for that answer. That was actually very thorough and answered some questions I had over the topic.

 

 

[Count Burks]

38 minutes ago, Chaser Zaks said:

FS developer / bug hunter here:

I really wish people would stop posting misinformation. If you have a question, we have support that can answer questions.

LL has been using 1:1 for the longest time. Since web profiles specifically. The official viewer used web profiles exclusively, until they brought back the native profile floater a few releases ago. The official viewer's native profile viewer uses 1:1 on all images.

FS implemented a check so that if the width is not equal to the height, use the legacy size. The official viewer doesn't do this.

1:1 is the correct assumption, and honestly should be the only one, but people want the old 4:3 ratio, so that was added for those who still want that.

FS inherited the 1:1 from LL to better fit the specification standard that LL has laid out.

Additionally, this isn't cropping. Cropping implies removing portions of a image. This is resizing. Not really resizing either, since 256x256, 512x512, and 1024x1024 are all 1:1 naturally. 4:3 is arguably worse because it alters the image by making pixels at a ratio of 4:3. Pixels are 1:1, not 4:3.

 

Speaking on my own opinion, viewers should follow the official specification as closely as possible. As someone who is particular about the SL experience, stuff that works on one viewer should work the same on another viewer. The 4:3 check(if height != width), while not official, I can understand and wish LL would implement. However 1:1 as the default should be the default as that is what LL implements.

Reason why I feel this way: New residents are not going to immediately download a TPV. Stuff should be tailored to work on the LL viewer first. If you do something that a TPV viewer only supports, it will not work for a new resident. Telling a new resident "Download a TPV for it to work right" is the worst thing to do, as it implies SL is broken out of the box.

You are correct that your viewer is not cropping but resizing images. Since its latest release the 4:3 ratio remained respected but now that seems no longer to be the case.

Now your viewer doesn't seem to support the 1:1 format out of the box. When I look to create a snapshot (and I am sure many people use this option to make a profile picture) I get presented with the following screen.

Do you offer an option in there to create a 1:1 profile image? Yes if one would use the custom option but nothing with any of the normal options which can be selected.

Most people just use current window, then download their image and upload it as their profile picture. Hence the reason many people have 4:3 scaled profile images.

I used Viewer 1, then I used Singularity and because of a lack of updates I switched to Firestorm Viewer. All the time 4:3 profile images until your latest update.

If Linden Lab has decided everyone needs square profile images fine. 

From the below image you can clearly see how the Firestorm Viewer is just flip flopping between both image styles and one image will always look distorted.

Either you should properly support 4:3 like it used to be in earlier versions of your viewer or you can opt to make everything square 1:1.

As for misinformation, no misinformation has been spread, unusual profile image behavior has been detected which has been clearly displayed in this thread.

As the above image demonstrates Firestorm viewer is now effectively resizing images into 1:1 squares which were uploaded in a format similar to 4:3 as you can see with the above unconstrained image example.

I didn't saw this as a bug but a design choice from Linden Lab. I invite you to look at plenty of profiles and you will come to the conclusion that the majority of users have now "resized" images in their profile (because of Linden Lab their UI designer). 

I am sure you understand why the current situation can lead to confusion.

[Rowan Amore]

6 minutes ago, Count Burks said:

You are correct that your viewer is not cropping but resizing images. Since its latest release the 4:3 ratio remained respected but now that seems no longer to be the case.

Now your viewer doesn't seem to support the 1:1 format out of the box. When I look to create a snapshot (and I am sure many people use this option to make a profile picture) I get presented with the following screen.

Do you offer an option in there to create a 1:1 profile image? Yes if one would use the custom option but nothing with any of the normal options which can be selected.

Most people just use current window, then download their image and upload it as their profile picture. Hence the reason many people have 4:3 scaled profile images.

I used Viewer 1, then I used Singularity and because of a lack of updates I switched to Firestorm Viewer. All the time 4:3 profile images until your latest update.

If Linden Lab has decided everyone needs square profile images fine. 

From the below image you can clearly see how the Firestorm Viewer is just flip flopping between both image styles and one image will always look distorted.

Either you should properly support 4:3 like it used to be in earlier versions of your viewer or you can opt to make everything square 1:1.

As for misinformation, no misinformation has been spread, unusual profile image behavior has been detected which has been clearly displayed in this thread.

As the above image demonstrates Firestorm viewer is now effectively resizing images into 1:1 squares which were uploaded in a format similar to 4:3 as you can see with the above unconstrained image example.

I didn't saw this as a bug but a design choice from Linden Lab. I invite you to look at plenty of profiles and you will come to the conclusion that the majority of users have now "resized" images in their profile (because of Linden Lab their UI designer). 

I am sure you understand why the current situation can lead to confusion.

As most new users will save to inventory, they don't have any option aside from 512x512.  If I take a picture for a new resident, I save to inventory and pass it to them, again at 512x512.  You only get the size option when saving to Disk.   Why is this so hard to grasp?

[Chaser Zaks]

13 minutes ago, Count Burks said:

You are correct that your viewer is not cropping but resizing images. Since its latest release the 4:3 ratio remained respected but now that seems no longer to be the case.

Now your viewer doesn't seem to support the 1:1 format out of the box. When I look to create a snapshot (and I am sure many people use this option to make a profile picture) I get presented with the following screen.

Do you offer an option in there to create a 1:1 profile image? Yes if one would use the custom option but nothing with any of the normal options which can be selected.

Most people just use current window, then download their image and upload it as their profile picture. Hence the reason many people have 4:3 scaled profile images.

I used Viewer 1, then I used Singularity and because of a lack of updates I switched to Firestorm Viewer. All the time 4:3 profile images until your latest update.

If Linden Lab has decided everyone needs square profile images fine. 

From the below image you can clearly see how the Firestorm Viewer is just flip flopping between both image styles and one image will always look distorted.

Either you should properly support 4:3 like it used to be in earlier versions of your viewer or you can opt to make everything square 1:1.

As for misinformation, no misinformation has been spread, unusual profile image behavior has been detected which has been clearly displayed in this thread.

As the above image demonstrates Firestorm viewer is now effectively resizing images into 1:1 squares which were uploaded in a format similar to 4:3 as you can see with the above unconstrained image example.

I didn't saw this as a bug but a design choice from Linden Lab. I invite you to look at plenty of profiles and you will come to the conclusion that the majority of users have now "resized" images in their profile (because of Linden Lab their UI designer). 

I am sure you understand why the current situation can lead to confusion.

1. Click "> Selection"
2. Choose "Save to inventory"

 

If you are saving to disk, I suspect you are going to edit it first, in which case you can crop it to the right size. I save to disk as 7680x4320, this obviously wont upload to SL but allows me to squeeze as much detail out before I edit it and upload.

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by Chaser Zaks

[Theresa Tennyson]

11 hours ago, Count Burks said:

You are correct that your viewer is not cropping but resizing images. Since its latest release the 4:3 ratio remained respected but now that seems no longer to be the case.

Now your viewer doesn't seem to support the 1:1 format out of the box. When I look to create a snapshot (and I am sure many people use this option to make a profile picture) I get presented with the following screen.

Do you offer an option in there to create a 1:1 profile image? Yes if one would use the custom option but nothing with any of the normal options which can be selected.

Most people just use current window, then download their image and upload it as their profile picture. Hence the reason many people have 4:3 scaled profile images.

 

 

Look at your example. That isn't even close to being 4:3. It would be around 5.7:3. If "most people" made profile pictures the way you say they'd look squashed even using 4:3 because 4:3 was the monitor standard back in 2003 when Viewer 1 was developed but it hasn't been for literally over a decade. The monitor I'm currently looking at is at least 13 years old and wasn't that high end when I bought it, but it's still a widescreen monitor.

[Ceka Cianci]

Didn't they start this around last summer some time?

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 8/30/2023 at 5:10 PM, Count Burks said:

When you think about it, it is rather weird. The entire globe figured out in the 90's that widescreen TV's and imagery provide a richer viewing experience and is more easy on the eyes. However the user interface designers at Linden Lab were thinking the opposite and decided to go old school style again and just crop everything into a nice square stamp.

 

4:3 isn't "widescreen", it's the old "academy" proportion used for old TV's and movies like The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station (1895)

[Rowan Amore]

Also, if you look at many social media sites, their recommended proportions for Profile Images is 1:1.  Ya know, square.

Always Up-To-Date Guide to Social Media Image Sizes | Sprout Social

[Love Zhaoying]

It is only a little surprising that the Profile display dialog / page does not detect the picture ratio and adjust it on the screen accordingly.  I suppose that's just an oversite and a pretty easy "bug" to fix if needed..

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

11 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

It is only a little surprising that the Profile display dialog / page does not detect the picture ratio and adjust it on the screen accordingly.  I suppose that's just an oversite and a pretty easy "bug" to fix if needed..

 

Hah!

If it did that all profile pictures would end up as 1:1 or 2:1.

You literally cannot upload a 4:3 aspect picture, or save one to inventory, all snapshots/image uploads to inv, are automatically resized to the nearest lower power of 2, if they are not already power of 2.

So you use your 20 year old CRT monitor, and take a 4:3 aspect screenshot to disk at 1280x1024

you upload that to SL and it gets squashed, badly by a crap resizing thing, to 1024x1024.

You take a 1024x768 picture and upload, its badly squashed to 1024x512.

 

Just make it 1:1 only, and its fixed,.

Wait! That's what LL already did! Years ago!