Adding an Avatar to your profile....

[Cathy Monaghan]

For those who want to learn more about Avatars....

That little picture that appears under a person's name in the author column of a message is called an "Avatar". It's just a graphic or digital photo that has been edited with a tool like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Photo Editor. If you want to use a photo of yourself, use one that's a good close-up, crop it so that your face is the main focus, then resize it so that it is no larger than <b>80 x 80 pixels at 72 dpi and the file size is less than 6K</b>, then save it somewhere on your computer.

Avatars do not initially have to reside on a web server like the images that can be included within posted messages do in order to use one. So once you've edited and saved your picture you're ready to add it to your profile on the new board. Don't want to use a photo of yourself? How about one of your boat.

You must be a registered user of the new board and then you must login. So make sure you login then click on the "<b>Your Settings</b>" link which is located up in the header information (below "<b>Need help starting?</b>") at the top of the page.

After you've clicked on "<b>Your Settings</b>", scroll down to the bottom of the page to the "<b>Avatar control panel</b>" section. Click on the "<b>Browse</b>" button next to the box for "<b>Upload Avatar from your machine:</b>" then navigate to where you saved your file. Double-click on the name of your file to select it.

Click on the "<b>Submit</b>" button at the bottom of the page. This process uploads your file to the web server.

You can change your Avatar at anytime afterwards by simply modifying "<b>Your Settings</b>" following the same instructions.

Try it.


Cathy
<a href="http://www.capedory.org/">CDSOA Webmaster</a>

[bilofsky]

Avatars have to be 80 x 80 pixels or smaller, and 6000 bytes or smaller.

If you're having trouble getting your favorite picture into that few bytes - try saving it as a GIF format file.

Usually JPEG, or JPG, file format gets you the smallest possible file size for a photo.

But for something this small, I've found that GIF format is usually smaller. Try both and see what works for you.

- Walt

[Stan W.]

For a binary challenged soul such as myself, would someone please elaborate on exactly what is involved in reducing the size of an existing jpg (whatever that means) file or converting it to a gif (whatever that means) file. All of my pictures that I think would make good avatars are large jpg files and I have no idea how to shrink or convert them.

Thanks.

[bilofsky]

To reduce the size of a picture file, use a photo editing program. Microsoft Paint comes with Windows but won't do a very good job of preserving the image. If you have any kind of image device - digital camera, printer, scanner, etc. - there might have been something better bundled with it.

See the instructions for the program to find out how to reduce the image size. You're looking for a size in pixels (dots), not inches.

To save in jpg or gif format, select that format in the "Save as" dialog box.

Hope that's enough to get you started.

- Walt

[Stan W.]

I've got it now. Turns out I had software I didn't even know about.

[bilofsky]

[Cathy Monaghan]

Hi Everybody,

To reduce the size of a picture file, use a photo editing program. Microsoft Paint comes with Windows but won't do a very good job of preserving the image. If you have any kind of image device - digital camera, printer, scanner, etc. - there might have been something better bundled with it.

See the instructions for the program to find out how to reduce the image size. You're looking for a size in pixels (dots), not inches.

To save in jpg or gif format, select that format in the "Save as" dialog box.

Hope that's enough to get you started.

- Walt

Actually, PCs have been shipped with Microsoft Photo Editor on them for at least the last 5 years. So if you've got a PC and your running a Microsoft operating system, you should have it. If you're running Microsoft XP, take a look in the Start Menu and follow this route:

Start Menu
All Programs
Microsoft Office Tools
Microsoft Photo Editor

Have fun making your avatars.

Cathy
CDSOA Webmaster

[Bob L]

And, if you're running a mac, the newer ones come with GraphicConverter which will do everything one needs to resize an image, both in dimension and bytes.

Bob

[Stan W.]

The computer in one of my offices has Microsoft Photo Editor and it produced a poor quality reduced image. My home computer has something called Microsoft Picture It! Photo 2002 that worked much better once I got past the unintuitive interface.

[ronellis]

And, if you're running a mac, the newer ones come with GraphicConverter which will do everything one needs to resize an image, both in dimension and bytes.

Bob

I'm running on an older Mac (G4 500 Powerbook) and I have Photoshop 7. When I crop to 80 x 80 pixels, at 72 ppi, and save at lowest quality jpeg or gif, my file size is still about 19k.

Anyone have any suggestions? Is photoshop saving some sort of extraneous data with my file?

I don't have Graphic Converter on my machine, and I can't find it available on the Apple website.

Thanks.

[bilofsky]

When you convert to GIF, try selecting fewer than 256 colors - see if 128 gives you an acceptable size and quality.

Try using a less complex photo.

[dasein668]

I'm running on an older Mac (G4 500 Powerbook) and I have Photoshop 7. When I crop to 80 x 80 pixels, at 72 ppi, and save at lowest quality jpeg or gif, my file size is still about 19k.

Anyone have any suggestions? Is photoshop saving some sort of extraneous data with my file?

Are you selecting "save as"? If so, then yes, PS is probably saving extraneous data. You should use "Save For Web" which will give you all sorts of optimization options and will allow you to preview the size and quality of the optimized image.



You should have no trouble getting a jpg or gif file of 80x80 down to 2 or 3k.

[ronellis]

Thanks, Nathan. That was the trick. "Save for Web"