Sharing photos on the forum & Etiquette (Please read)

[Carl]

Convert photos to JPG format for stories and sharing on the forum & Etiquette

Index of Links:

About default images that come from Sims 4
How to: Convert photos to jpeg format
About IfanView and Your Current Photos
How to: Check Your Image Type/Format
Attach and Insert Photos into Posts
A Reminder on Etiquette


About default images that come from Sims 4
And why we prefer photos in .jpg format.

Hi guys, depending on the service you use, it would be friendly to our mobile users to switch the types of files you're sharing on the Forum to jpg. Many files are of the png type, uncompressed, and a single picture is 2.5 megabytes in size. This is the default type of screenshot the Sims 3/4 take and they are literally 10x bigger in terms of file size than they need to be. I'm not talking about how wide a picture is, but the amount of downloading a person has to do to get the picture. If you have a story with 50 pictures on one page, a person has to download over 75mg just to download that page. This definitely hurts people's abilities to read your stories.

If you're just uploading pictures from the game directly, you're using the high-res screenshots and those aren't necessary here. The largest picture size the Forum will even display is 800 pixels wide. Many pictures here are 1920 pixels wide and in uncompressed PNG format. We want a compressed format so it's more friendly. It's literally about 4x as big as an 800 width picture in terms of size, and about 10x larger in terms of how much a person has to download. This is why we prefer members convert photos to .jpg format.

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How to Convert Photos to JPG format

Here are a few free editors to convert the pictures from PNG format to JPEG for you.

IrfanView - http://download.cnet.com/IrfanView/

Simple Batch Conversion Using Irfanview
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/50519/simple-batch-conversion-using-irfanview/

Resize Images with Irfanview
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=26583.msg483711#msg483711

How To: Use IrfanView Batch Conversion and Resize Images
https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=30846.msg492875#msg492875

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Microsoft Paint (Comes with Windows)

How To: Edit Photos - Basics using Paint
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,25578.0.html

How to Use Microsoft Paint in Windows
https://www.wikihow.com/Use-Microsoft-Paint-in-Windows

How to Resize an Image in Microsoft Paint
https://www.wikihow.com/Resize-an-Image-in-Microsoft-Paint

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Other ways to convert photos to .jpg format:

wikiHow to Convert Pictures To Jpeg
http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-Pictures-To-JPEG

Using your own photo editor, if you have one to load your photos and export them as .jpg or .jpeg

Using an image converter online:

Convert Png to Jpg
https://png2jpg.com/
Select files to upload or drag and drop the files

PNG to JPG online converter
https://ezgif.com/png-to-jpg
- Select files to upload or use their image url to convert files.

How to Edit Photos on Mac Using Photos
https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/editing-basics-pht304c2ace6/mac

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About IfanView and Your Current Photos

Irfanview is an excellent photo editor, and you can actually convert ALL of your images at once, using the instructions. Then, when you upload them they will not take mobile users nearly as long to download. Even on my fast cable, it takes about 10 seconds to load some pages with many png images.

I won't point out any culprits, just want you guys who didn't know to know that the size of files matters in an age when so many people are using limited data plans on mobile phones with already slow internet. I am sure that some people have to stay away from stories just because they can eat up so much bandwidth.

There's no need to go back and change all your story pictures, this is just a nice idea for future posts. I wouldn't want anyone to have to do all that work! Once you've wrapped your head around how to batch replace  - with the 'B' key in Irfanview, it becomes very easy and the files even take less time to upload to your choice of image hosting services, such as Imgur or Photobucket.

Follow those instructions and converting pictures will become second nature, even if it takes some time to learn. There is no need to resize them if you'd like people to be able click them to see the full image, but changing the file type will have a massive impact on size without noticeably hurting the picture's quality. This will also reduce the space images take up on your hard drive, allowing you to store many more of them if you delete the originals once the conversion is done. I suggest you make a subfolder in The Sims 4 screenshots directory, and put the converted pictures there. You can then delete as many high-res shots as you need, and in the process save tons of space.

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How to Check Your Images Type/Format

: If you wonder which type you're using but are unsure, you can check with these instructions, provided by Deklitch:

1) Go to the post that has the image you want to check.

2) Right click the image you want to check.

3) Select Open Image, View Photo Info or Properties from the drop down. (Depending on what browser you have.)

4) In the pop-up box that comes up - look for the word Type: If this says PNG Image, then your image was saved in .png format and will need to be changed to a .jpg format.

5) Repeat the above 4 steps for a few more pictures in one of your posts to ensure that it wasn't a one off jpg file, but provided you save the pictures in the same way each time, they should be the same format. (Note the SHOULD, not WILL in that last sentence)

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Also, a Reminder on Etiquette

We have had a few incidents where people have commented rude things on other people's stories. That's completely unacceptable. The comments get removed; you are in another person's little spot on the forum and it's rude to say something negative about their story and intend to degrade them. This is their place to express creativity, and if you do not like the story you can just move on. Just because you don't like the direction a story is heading, doesn't mean someone else doesn't. Many members enjoy reading them, and encourage one another.

Those are called manners, exercise them please.

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[Magpie2012]

@Carl thanks so much for this. I just adore this forum, and being unable to view screenshots due to size does somewhat impact on a story. As to the etiquette, this forum is leaps and bounds above the official forum when it comes to manners. I'm just grateful that potentially hurtful comments get taken down so quick!

Sent from my BlackBerry 9720 using Tapatalk

[Dellena]

Those are called manners, exercise them please.

More proof my mom was right, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

[MarianT]

I did not know that about png and jpg files. I'll start converting immediately.

[sdhoey]

Thank you so much for this Carl. Just checked out the Link you posted and you had me at the CNET link.. lol if it has a CNET download link then I'm game.  Anything to help my forum friends out.

[MarianT]

Okay, I'm thoroughly confused. I downloaded Irfanview, but I can't seem to do a batch conversion. Also, can we share from Irfanview, or do we still need to go through something like Photobucket or Imgur?

And is there any way to change the pictures that we already have on Photobucket?

Edit to add: I think I understand now. I've changed my pictures to .jpg on Irfanview, but then I go to Photobucket to edit and share. They do seem to load faster.I still haven't figured out how to change the pictures that I already have on Photobucket though.

[Magpie2012]

As someone who predominantly visits the forum via mobile, I just want to say thank you to all of you for being so quick to embrace this change. Yet another reason to totally love and adore everyone here 

[MarianT]

I haven't figured out a really efficient way to do this yet, but I have started changing my Photobucket .png files to .jpg files.

First you have to download Irfanview on to your computer.
Go to Photobucket. Over on the right, underneath the different ways to share your pictures, in small print, there's a command to Download Album.
Click on that. When your story album has finished downloading, shut down Photobucket.
Open Irfanview. Get the album file from your Download section, and do a Batch Conversion.
Go back to Photobucket and Create a New Album. Upload the screenshots from the subfolder where your jpg files are.

At this point, you have to come back to the Forum and Modify your chapters. I can't think of any faster way than to copy each screenshot individually and replace what you had previously. The good news is that your .jpg photos will have all the cropping and resizing that you'd edited in.

[Playalot]

I didn't know about the difference in files either... hmm... I have a feeling this is going to be a steep learning curve.. As well as pretty time consuming. 

[grimsoul]

If your like me and use Photoshop for your editing software there is a easy way of converting your pictures with it also without having to download another program.
Here's a tutorial on how.  Converting a batch of pictures to .jpeg format

[Playalot]

If your like me and use Photoshop for your editing software there is a easy way of converting your pictures with it also without having to download another program.
Here's a tutorial on how.  Converting a batch of pictures to .jpeg format

I actually just use photobucket... so I will have to really think about where to from here. Thanks though grimsoul I'll have a read through the link as it might be easier to change what I do completely.

[Carl]

I'm glad there's a good response here and some are wiling to try.

You do still need a hosting source, Irfanview is just an image editor in certain ways, not like Photoshop although Photoshop can do all Irfanview can. It's great for viewing things - hence the name.

@MarianT Press B in Irfanview, and you can do a batch conversion. That's it. You can even use select all once you've navigated to the right folder,  then on the left select a different folder to put the converted ones in.

Under output format, pick JPEG. When you've got your settings ready, hit start batch and it will do all the files you've selected.

Irfanview can also be used to crop, and it's what I use to make the guide's pictures look good  (or try) Honestly a full picture of the game screen doesn't look nearly as good as a small selection of it. Given the width we allow here, you can show a better view of your subject in an 800 pixel wide picture if you take the time to crop it.

Drag a box, control + Y and voila, you've cropped it.

These are good skills for heavy internet users, anyway, and can help you with disk usage as I said.

[Carl]

Also, I did not mean for people to go back and change pictures. This is just a good guideline and not some rule. I am editing the first post to reflect this. I don't want anyone to have to go back and do 30 posts and change them all to jpg. It'd just be nice if in the future at least some people embrace this idea.

[Playalot]

Much more manageable if it's a going forward guideline rather than having to change existing stories for sure. 

[Carl]

@Playalot yes, I'm really glad you messaged me. No one who did PNG was doing anything wrong, I used to have them too - it's just JPG are so much kinder to mobile.

I converted the whole site and it took the size of images down by about 80% if I recall, which really helps when you have 5-10 pics on a page.