Image resizing

[Hex08]

I am having some problems with images displaying and am hoping for some help. When I find an image, such as a picture of a monster, I put it into the images folder. When I load up the picture sometimes it is way to big so I will use GIMP2 or Paint to re-size or scale the image to make it smaller so it will display better in Fantasy Grounds. When I do this sometimes the image, when displayed in Fantasy Grounds, remains the same size but the resolution becomes worse. When I scale the image in GIMP I try reducing the image size by pixel, percent and inches, always with the same result.

Any suggestions on a better way to reduce the size of an image for Fantasy Grounds?

[Trenloe]

I don't bother resizing images outside of Fantasy Grounds (unless they are very big and I want to reduce them to help keep player load times down).

See this thread for a bit more info: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18962

Especially post #2 - look at the FG resize and zoom features, this is often all you need to make the image look good in FG. The settings are saved for the next time you open the image and when you share it with the players it should keep the same size (sometimes you need to sync the image as well).

[Invictys]

What you describe is inevitable to some degree, think about what is happening. If you take a typical web resolution image of 72 pixels per inch (ppi) and an image 10 inches by 10 inches then you have 720 pixels per side. If you wanted to reduce the image down to say 5x5 inches at 72 ppi then you will be left with 360 pixels per side, this is accomplished using what's called downsampling in which image data is discarded. When you lose pixel data you lose quality. There is another method described below which avoids this altogether.

A good image program like photoshop or gimp (I assume GIMP has this too but not sure) will be better at downsampling through the use of something called interpolation which makes it better at predicting which pixels to discard. Be sure to select Bicubic Sharper interpolation for the best results when reducing image size.

Note that the above example starts with a 10x10 inch 72ppi image and ends with a 5x5 inch 72ppi image and loses data along the way and hence file size is also reduced. If you don't care about the file size but only the image size and clarity then you can do this another way which will allow you to avoid losing pixel data.

Start with the 10x10 inch 72ppi image but when resizing it uncheck the "resample image" box and raise the ppi to 144ppi. This will take the same number of pixels (720) and increase the number of them per inch by double leaving you with an image size half as big but with the same quality and file size. So you would have started with a 10x10 inch 72ppi image and end up with a 5x5 inch 144ppi image with no loss of quality since no pixels were discarded only the distance between them was altered.

To decrease image size further you can go to higher ppi or use some combination of this technique along with downsampling to achieve the best quality.

If reducing file size is your goal though I'm afraid you have no choice but to discard some pixels to achieve it. There are some ways to cheat and maintain some better downsampling results by doing it in stages and using unsharp mask filters between stages but in the end less pixels total means less quality.

Hope that helps.:D

[damned]

the other issue you are most likely having is that if you have resized your image outside FG but kept the name the same FG remembers its old dimensions and displays the image stretched to fit those dimensions... give image a new filename and see what happens.
at least his used to occur - maybe it doesnt in current version...?

[Hex08]

Thanks for the responses. I will test and see what happens.