Full Resolution Preview On Or Off

I turn it off .. because it takes a while for the box to show up

I don't have enough patient to wait "that" long

michelle saraswati

I turn mine off because I find it distracting! Since you already have it enabled I would leave it that way.

I have considered turning it off but worry people will think I am trying to hide something. Thoughts?

I have it on. It's really the only way to see full resolution details of your image on the site.

i leave it on. i want people to pixel peep. i spent a lot of time cleaning, adjusting, and making sure it looks good up close. and also you wouldn't be able to play the - where's mike game?

type in SELF in the search on my site http://www.MikeSavad.com and everything that comes up has a picture of me hidden or not so hidden in the background. type NAME and i hide my name in there some place.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

when people have it off it only annoys me, and i do think your hiding something.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

When its off I think " I may have been born at night, but not last night. What are you trying to hide".

There are some regular buyers on this site and I think after they get burned on images with no preview they may pass over images that look questionable in the preview. If you have nothing to hide, show it.

Bradford, the preview can also be misleading. I prefer the rollover the image previews on other sites.

it might be misleading, but its better than nothing. i've seen many buy it anyway, despite the loupe being there. what i don't like is the cut off parts in the crop. i know this is to prevent reassembly, but sometimes you want to see what's on the line.




---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I've been turning mine off. It just sits there and "spins" for me usually and it frustrates me so I figure buyers will be too.
If it ever does load, it's only after "thinking" for a loooonnng time.

I have mine on. I spend a lot of time making sure the pixel quality is good before uploading them and I want buyers to know they are getting high resolution images without pixelation. If I upload the image and can see any pixelation in the Full Resolution Preview, it does not stay on my site until I've fixed it.
I do not want buyers thinking I'm hiding anything. But it is also for my own sake to verify my images are up to par.

I don't see what thebig deal is. The green box only shows up whe you point the mouse over it. I wouldn,t be surprised if most buyers didn't even know it existed. I leave it on.

I never have bought an image that has it hidden.

Donnie,

For those who know what to look for the 100% preview is invaluable. And if I was about to plunk down $200-$300 on a 48 inch print I'd want to be able to get as close as I can in a gallery.

I leave it on for the reasons mentioned by others before me. I would not buy anything that had it turned off

"For those who know what to look for" If it passes quality control for printing isn't that enough? I personally don't want the customer to see the pixel count either. I just don't care for the FAA loupe.

On, I want people to see the detail. I too wouldn't buy anything I couldn't see at full size.

When I first opened my FAA account I didn't have it on and then I read other discussions and decided to have it on. I didn't want to have any issues with something not being good enough and wasting anyones time. I've only sold small items and one print. That being said the one print that I have sold was this one and they had it printed in the largest size. 48 x 32

I think I will keep it on. :)

I'm not a big fan of the way it's implemented, but as Mike mentioned, it's better than nothing. So yes, I have it on because it does seem like you have something to hide if it's off. I would love it if FAA implemented a rollover preview. I think customers would appreciate it also.

I have some photos treated with a painterly effect. The only way you can see the effect on the site is with the full resolution preview feature.

Try this one for example...

That is lovely Brian

I am proud of the quality of my work. I often edit at 200% or even larger and a lot of my work has a lot of detail, so I leave it on. And like Brian says.

I leave it on...for all the reasons already stated. When ever I purchase something online (not just art) I use the loupe. I want to see what I am purchasing...for me it's a must.

I also leave mine on. I agree it is annoying when it so frequently does not work, but I feel there needs to be some way to see detail views. As Brian stated if you have certain textures they do not show up without viewing in the green box. I would not want customers to be surprised by it.

Many POD sites don't have this loupe and the images display smaller and it doesn't stop people from buying.

"Many POD sites don't have this loupe and the images display smaller and it doesn't stop people from buying"

FAA is becoming the go to place for designers needing prints. Many are even willing to pay full price plus we have designer prints and the retail stores which may be buying to display. The fact that there is an image preview is one reason they may prefer to buy here. Big orders are everyday now. It must be a hassle to have to return. I am sure they know to look for things like texture layers on what seems to be a straight photo. They don't want surprises or have to make apologies to their clients. Casual buyers won't even know its there.

We can have it on or off. There are valid reasons to have it off. Most images stand up to it fine and for those that don't leave it off. There is still the inspection team and the return policy.

Can't know that a lack of full size preview stops people from buying art here or anywhere. You can't quantify sales that didn't happen. It has stopped me from buying, and others have said the same here in this thread.

For me, it's a why not thing. Why not let the buyer see full resolution? I do agree it could be more elegantly implemented.

Not bring up a single name.....but I was on another POD a few months ago. The prints were cheaper, I began to think
the quality was really bad. FAA is using high quality papers and canvasses. I know that fully. FAA is offering far more
sizing choices. I strongly believe Bradford's comments that designers are looking to FAA. That other site would be
a designer's nightmare. And just for everyone to know, yes the artists were really working directly to promote each other.
That caused the lowest prices to prevail. Every artist was only in a common area where all the clients could see every single price
across dozens or hundreds or thousands of artists depending on how many other artists you promoted. Just a click.

Full disclosure I gladly left them out of my future business plans.

Dave

Donnie,

Your work is great. I use the loupe.

It is not a good or bad thing. If someone takes all of this more seriously as a buyer it is there.

It is kind of like an old fashioned insurance policy for the salesman. He keeps his image resolution down, but
with the loupe he still manages to show off his wares.

Dave

This is a bit like the old waternark question...

I like to be able to get an idea of image sharpness so I enable it. I would have hesitated to buy an image without it in the past, although I know from experience that the QA group here run a tight ship so I have confidence now.

Richard Reeve
ReevePhotos.com

on.

i think FAA needs to improve the resolution preview box to be more sophisticated, with no uploading time

just want to be honest .. right now the box is a bit annoying to me

michelle saraswati

I leave it on only because I don't want prospective purchasers to think I'm trying to hide something. Other than that, I really don't like it. I can look at some of my images here magnified 100-200% and they look fine. Look at the same image here and they don't look as sharp or the details aren't as crisp.

on

I check all my images for focus, noise, chromatic aberration, artifacts etc before I even consider uploading them. After years on a very demanding stock site where every image is examined pixel by pixel at 100% before being accepted, I think I have a pretty good idea of what to look for.

If the green box preview gives a true representation of what I see at 100% in Photoshop, I leave it on. If the preview adds compression artifacts that aren't in the original (which is often the case, unfortunately), I turn it off. I'm quite happy for viewers to be able to examine my images in detail, but I don't see the point of showing them a messed-up version.

Glad I found this discussion! I leave mine on, although some images that look perfectly sharp at 100% Photoshop and have been accepted and sold by Getty Images as stock, look soft with the FAA's Preview! I also do know what to look for, (been selling stock for almost 20 years) but I am wondering if there is some kind of flaw with the Preview.

I am currently starting a discussion in a group I administer, because I require the Full-Resolution preview to be turned on so that I can inspect images. One person has sent me an email commenting that it only works for certain resolutions of images. Some people submit images that are very small in dimension and look terribly out of focus in the Preview. Some of the work I see is traditional painting, but with a resolution of 2500x1823, which would not allow for a very large print to be made. I am considering ditching the requirement, as to be quite honest only a handful of images submitted truly look sharp!

The one thing I have found it useful for is showing up camera shake!

if their image is too small for the preview. then its too small for everything. it doesn't do pano's justice. it does elongated edges. the system tends to sharpen the image a bit, but mostly what's annoying is the compression. both preview and close up are compressed to say a level 6. so it may be sharp, but its so compressed it creates artifacts. if you have a requirement that it has to be sharp - your wasting your time checking it all. because if you look at them all you'll have no time for yourself. and if you don't accept it, you'll be arguing with everyone.

the close up is meant originally for painters that don't edit their work. its so they can see it up close. then it became a gimmick for customers or other pixel peepers. i keep mine on, let people see the details.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Thanks, Mike. That's very helpful. I wish they would get rid of it and come up with something better!

Looking at them all is not a problem with the group, as it's not terribly active. But, I was beginning to think I was wasting my time looking for sharpness. I don't really have any arguments about images that are not accepted. Most people just accept that not all images are accepted anyway.


Diane

its good enough. i'd just like the compression issue worked on. or announced if he did it.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

I leave it on because for myself, I wouldn't even consider buying an image if it wasn't on. Sometimes I'm just floored with all the back-patting comments I see when I look at some of the images here, because they're totally jaggy and pixelated...unprintable. And these have the loupe ON. I can't even imagine the problems that are hiding when someone doesn't enable the loupe. I also use textures and filtering that don't really show up unless you look at the work with the loupe.

Yes, it's very frustrating when it just hangs there and won't work.

What Joy said, I wouldn't even consider buying art I couldn't see up close, so I don't expect anyone else to have to either. The magnification does tend to soften the work fairly often, tho. Better than over-sharpening it I guess.

Joy, you have just confirmed something for me. I know that your own images must be tack sharp, but when I click on your images in the Other Photography Gallery they all look out of focus. This is exactly why I am having a problem with it. Some of my own work has the same look, whereas others look tack sharp! If I was a buyer and used the loupe, I wouldn't know that this was some kind of flaw in how the program compresses the pixels!

Diane

As an experiment, I forgot I had uploaded a few Iphone shots! The resolution in the Loupe looks awful! I opened a couple of the images in Photoshop at 100% to compare them. I am totally shocked at the difference! One of those fuzzy looking shots on FAA, but tack sharp in Photoshop, was recently licensed for $900 to an ad agency via Getty Images. I'm wondering if I should remove the Preview for those particular images! It certainly is not helping them any!

FAA has to come up with something better. I would certainly not be tempted to buy my fuzzy looking shots as art if I was a buyer!!

Yes, those photographs are generally from the 1980s and were done on film. They're offered only at small sizes and greeting cards for the most part because they do tend to fuzz out with the loupe....it's not necessarily out of focus, it's just digitizing slide and negative film gives this all over misty look to the image. The color photos were done on slide film. I don't have any photographs in my galleries done with a digital camera. I was speaking about digital work when talking about jaggy lines and pixelation, not photography. Most of my work is digital art.

(edited to add)...Diane, I just went to your galleries and of the dozen or so images I looked at with the loupe, I didn't see anything out of focus. I did see the use of various filtering techniques, but that is not making them look out of focus at 100%. The underlying image is still in focus and the filtering is like an overlay....but it hasn't blurred out the image. As Mike said...it might be your screen resolution. If you've pumped up the page/font size, it will throw the loupe off.

just make sure your not increasing your screen size like i do. everything looks so small on my screen i have to increase the size by like 8 pluses. photoshop you don't have to do that. so it may look softer because of that. i try to compensate when i critique images.

there are times when i sign my images with my face, so i like keeping it on so people can play - find the mike game. for those who know about it anyway. if you type SELF, it should have my face in some form, some place in the image.

---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

I leave it on, however, I do have some point and shoot images posted that only look good maybe to 20 inches so that's as large as I price them even though the camera is a 16 mp camera so I could price it up to 40 inches. In that case the full resolution preview doesn't always look that good, but the only thing here I've sold 5 times was taken with that camera and it's never been returned or cancelled, so I guess it doesn't hurt to have it turned on. I also like to be able to check my images with it when I upload. If it looks a little "iffy", I'll leave the prices out of the larger sizes. And yes, I check them before I upload, but another way to check never hurts.

Diane, if I may venture a theory about the difference in sharpness you're seeing... If you view a photo at 100% in Photoshop, you are viewing it at the resolution of your monitor, which can be well over 100 screen pixels per inch. But when you view it at 100% on FAA, you're viewing it at browser resolution, which is 96 image pixels per inch. In other words, FAA may well be showing it to you at a higher magnification than Photoshop. Your monitor's high resolution may be hiding weaknesses that FAA reveals and that would show up when printed at large size at low resolution. (FAA allows down to 100 dpi for larger prints.)

Maybe you should forget about 100% in Photoshop. What do you see when you view at 150% or 200%? Have you tried matching the size of an image segment on FAA to that portion of the image in Photoshop? You can't really compare the two without exactly matching the magnification.

My own monitor is very close to browser resolution, and I haven't noticed a huge difference between Photoshop and FAA at 100%. But I also know that very few non-studio photos are tack sharp at 100%, and they don't need to be at most sizes. I think most experienced buyers or editors would have a feel for the acceptable tolerances.

Aaron

I leave mine off. Can't say I would ever think of not buying an image without a loupe because I thought the artist was hiding something tho. Not all places to buy art has loupes. I don't take out fine noise if that means the detail is lost. I prefer having the detail; besides fine noise doesn't show up on a print at any size.

My Professor and I have had the debate often about "pixel peeping". He thinks one should get up close to any size to see what shows up, I disagree. One does not hold say a 48 x 48 image 10" away, they view it on a wall from 5' or farther away. At that distance it's sharp if the image is sharp. It goes back to those who say I'd never buy an image that isn't at 300 ppi. Well billboards are usually printed around 10ppi to 30 ppi and they look sharp due to the distance they're viewed from.

I often don't print my orders from outside of FAA at 300 ppi all the time. In fact my printmakers would prefer 100-150 ppi especially for small prints; say 5 x 7 or 8 x 12. Besides why send such a huge file for something so small? Every single one has been absolutely beautiful. I've never needed to reprint due to pixels or anything else; the quality is very good.

~ Charly

its often not about sharpness, but about detail. a large print will have more detail, and in order to see it, you have to get close. while they may stand back to see it, people do like getting close to see things in detail. sort of the same reason people get large tv's.

thing is - if the buyers on this site are used to being able to see it up close, they may not want to take your word for it. they want to see what they are getting for XX amount of money. i've made more sales here than any other site. i can only assume it has something to do with the close up.

---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Mike, I see your point. I should've articulated myself better; personally I do NOT put up any image that isn't only sharp, but also has detail. Guess those who do put up images with less detail / sharpness may hinder those who don't nowadays. Yet my images wouldn't receive awards if I put up any ol' thing. When any of my images make the final cut or place out of thousands of other images or make Best in Show, that tells me the detail is there. I've also consulted with 2 well known photogs to get their opinions. Had either of them told me to just do this as a hobby and nothing else, I would've done just that.

As was mentioned earlier on, this is kind of like watermarks. It's a personal thing. I use them and don't use the loupe for reasons already mentioned. None of my images sold on FAA or my other websites have ever been returned and many of my customers have personally emailed me to say how happy they are with their beautiful prints. :)

~ Charly

Aaron, I see what you are saying, but am positive this is not the case for me. My screen resolution is around 100ppi, which is low for a monitor these days. Most good monitors are way higher than that!

The images I submit for stock are tack sharp where they need to be tack sharp (and I have been doing this for nearly 20 years). Pretty much all my images on FAA have already passed either Alamy QC or the Getty editors' requirements - even my IPhone shots! So it is highly unlikely that FAA is revealing weaknesses that Getty or Alamy would not find. I choose my images for submitting in Adobe Camera Raw, so anything not 100% sharp is eliminated then. It is then a requirement for my agencies that they be edited in Photoshop at 100%.

There is no difference between how my monitor and FAA sees images from my Canon 5D Mark II for the most part, but images shot with earlier camera versions like the 5D and earlier and with the Iphone are the ones giving a slightly fuzzy effect for me on FAA, in spite of the fact that they are also Getty and Alamy accepted images.

The fuzzy images I am seeing submitted to my Group are pretty low resolution, either shot with a low end digital camera or a point and shoot. That's where the problem seems to lie. For some reason the LOUPE does not appear to account for smaller resolution cameras and cameras with smaller sensors.

Mike, sharpness determines the amount of detail that can be reproduced from an image, and arguably the most important quality factor in an image. If someone makes a fabulous watercolor or oil painting, but the image submitted to FAA is not 100% tack sharp, then they do not have a quality product to sell. One of my responsibilities when I worked for a stock agency many years ago was to photograph with a 4x4 camera pieces of art to be sold as reproduction prints. Not a square centimeter of that art was allowed to be soft! :-)

Diane

Diane, do you submit to Getty and Alamy in the same format as to FAA? I'm wondering if you're seeing the effect of multiple JPEG compressions. Anything from an iPhone will already have heavy JPEG compression, yes? And JPEG compression always looks worse on low-resolution images, such as from early cameras. Were those images originally JPEG? And maybe you're compressing to JPEG at less than 100% quality when you export from Photoshop? And then FAA would have to compress it again to send the preview image. All of that multiplies.

The only real problem I'm seeing so far is increased artifacts on images that started with low resolution and a fair amount of JPEG compression in camera. Maybe you could use something like Topaz DeJPEG to remove some of the original artifacts before editing?

Hope you don't mind me throwing out ideas like this. It seems like you do have a lot more experience and more advanced skills than I do. And when I spoke of "weaknesses," I meant no offense. Any image has weakness if you enlarge it enough, because of the limitations of lenses and the laws of optics, and today's tools show that ever more easily. But once you reach a certain level of quality, the weaknesses do not affect printing or viewing at typical sizes. At 100% in Photoshop or FAA, you can see things that simply aren't going to make any difference in the print.

Aaron

Nope, you can take photos as jpg, png or tif files on iPhones using any of the better camera apps.

Aaron, I shoot everything in camera Raw, work on Tiffs, and save a JPEG once completed. The files I send to FAA are the same ones I send to Alamy and Getty. I don't rework jpegs, but these days that's not such a big deal as it once was anyway.

I have used Camera RAW on all my cameras since Canon's first DSLR.

I beg to differ about what is seen at 100% Photoshop. An image that is fuzzy at that level is not going to make a good print even at 8x10. You can hide some flaws by printing on canvas, but a straight print will not look sharp no matter what you do if it is not sharp at 100%.

And yes, you can shoot RAW with an app for the iPhone, although I don't do it. I have a 5S which has basically the same camera as the newer 6 without a few extra features.

Sorry, I meant TIFF files, not RAw for the IPHone. Still having my morning coffee. Lol!

Interestingly, I am currently making more money from my few hundred IPHone shots on Getty than I am from my other 3,000 images combined these days!! I'm not camera proud. Lol!

So far I've left the full resolution on. In most cases it shows how sharp and clear the art is at a large size. It also can be confusing, if you only sell to a certain size and not the largest.
ps: Mike, per your .... http://www.MikeSavad.com if I click on it, I can't view unless I sign in. I presume it is your FAA site as looks like it is....or is it your own site, just that is shows your art from FAA?. Is confusing! Anyway I can't sign in cause...it says my email is not correct, yet I know it is. Now if I google FAA and then sign in to FAA, I'm on OK , so figure that is done right. What is that all about?

that's odd, you should be able to see it. its just a normal art site. i wonder if that's affecting buyers. you should add this to the bugs page. i do know your not supposed to find your page via google, due to whatever reason.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Mike, oddly something must have been fixed, for now if I click on your MikeSavad.com site I am on & can view ........OK.