User talk:Screwball

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Hello! Welcome to UESPWiki. It's always good to have new members. If you would like to help improve any of our pages, you may want to take a look at the following links:

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Feel free to practice editing in the sandbox or discuss the games in the forums. If you need any help, don't hesitate to contact one of our mentors. Have fun! --Manic 17:47, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

ty ;)
Screwball 18:23, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Images

Thanks for all the screenshots you've been uploading to the site! However, any chance it would be possible for you to convert them to .jpg format and re-upload them? Png-image formats are unnecessarily large -- in terms of disk space but even more importantly in terms of the bandwidth necessary for tens of thousands of viewers to download the image each time they view a wiki page. For more information, see Help:Images. Thanks! --Nephele^Talk 02:20, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Sure, but you'll have to tell me what level of compression (and possibly other options) to use. Using Heartwood Mill as an example (848*636px), with minimum compression (best quality) the file size drops from 893KB to 423KB (using PSP7). Is that acceptable?
Higher compression, and lower file size, is possible, of course, but the image quality degrades progressively to the point where they look, frankly, awful in comparison to the original.
It also seems to depend on the s/ware used for the conversion:- PaintShopPro7 has very few options, Gimp2 has more, ImageMagic has so many I wouldn't know where to start... What do you, and the other major contributors, use (software and settings) noting that I do not have PhotoShop? Screwball 11:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

We haven't adopted any standards for jpeg compression. In my experience, best quality typically isn't necessary, but off the top of my head I couldn't even say what exact settings I've used (in photoshop, FWIW). I'm also not exactly a frequent contributor when it comes to images, so my experience might not count for much ;)

However, as long as the original image is jpeg format, the thumbnails will all be jpeg, using whatever default jpeg settings are applied by imagemagick -- meaning that the exact compression of the original is probably of secondary importance. --Nephele^Talk 06:58, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I have Photoshop, so I can convert them for you (along with a whole bunch of others on my list) if you aren't able to. Just let me know, because I will probably do it this weekend. elliot (talk) 07:01, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

@Nephele - thanks for the reply. Best quality may not be required, but some quality is - and jpegs, with too much compression, can become almost unrecognisable - hence my concern over settings (but see below).
@Elliot - thanks for the offer, but I have enough s/ware here to be able to do the conversions. ImageMagick seems to create, without any extra options, quite acceptable images (from my original .pngs) so I can batch-convert the existing ones and add the conversion to my "pipeline" for creating any new ones. The resulting file (using the same example as above) is a mere 200KB (a quarter of the original size) which should address the storage/download issues. Thanks for the offer though :) Screwball 11:21, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

If I upload a .jpg I get a new image, not an update to the existing one (despite using the add a new version link). I can edit the referring pages easily enough (should only be 1 per image) but how do I mark the existing .png versions for Delete? Screwball 11:44, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

You can use the deletion template {{<prod|Image has been re-uploaded in jpg. file format>}}. And remove these < >.Kitkat ^{•Talk•Contrib•E-mail} 12:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Cheers - I see you already did that for the Heartwood Mill image, so thanks for the example :) Screwball 13:06, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

(←) Also, while the images you upload are really good, they seem pretty bright. Is that your natural setting? If so, is there anyway you can darken them? The bright white kind of washes the images out. Thanks, Screwball. elliot (talk) 15:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

No, that's not my "natural" setting - they are all colour-corrected (lightened) deliberately. There are a number of images here with "concerns" that they are too dark - which untouched screenshots tend to be. I was trying to avoid falling into that trap. Darkening the existing images is not going to give the same results as re-cropping the original .bmp and reconverting to jpg, which means quite a lot of work if you want every one done - there's 42 so far... If you have specific ones in mind (and can give me a list of them) then I'll re-do them. Screwball 15:34, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Preferably, all of them should be adjusted. If you want to split it, then we both can do 21 so we can knock it out faster. elliot (talk) 15:36, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

You want a zip with 21 1280*1024 .bmp to play with? (joke, btw...) Always difficult to know what to do with any specific image - it's so subjective. Link me to one of the worst ones, let me redo it without any correction at all, then see if the result is acceptable. Better to sort that out before redoing all of them. Screwball 15:51, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I would advice great reluctance with color correcting images, it tends to give the images an unnatural look. As for brightening; it shouldn't be necessary if the image was taken which proper lighting in mind (in daylight, subject facing the source of the light). Unlike Oblivion and Morrowind, Skyrim screenshots tend to have good brightness and contrast by default. --Timenn-<talk> 11:20, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I would agree with that which is why they (the original screenshots) were all take around midday with the weather forced (console->fw 81a). If the consensus is that you a want non colour-corrected images then I'll go ahead and recreate them all from the originals, but as this is the second time going through them all I really don't want to have to do them all yet again if they're still not "to spec". Screwball 11:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Look at this image. It has really good contrast between the individual items within the shot. Upload one or two like that, and we can see if it is possible on your computer. Also, I wouldn't force the weather if it is already clear. elliot (talk) 17:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I hate to say this, but to me that is far too dark. On this PC (which I only use for 'net related stuff) I had to crank the brightness/contrast up full just to see what it was. On the "games" box it's better, but that is already cranked higher than I really want because Skyrim itself is so dark, and the in-game gamma is up full too. There is so little colour in that image it may as well be monochome. It is also not a 4:3 image, which is a requirement. As for the weather, I'm just following the guidance on Help:Images which suggests fw 81a. This is an unmodified screenshot similar to the one you linked (not cropped or anything, just converted to jpg). That's what I get from my system, so that is what I have to work with. Screwball 18:35, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

(←) This is becoming more complicated than it is. The images need fixed, and I have shown you what a good image should look like (File:SR-quest-Battle for Solitude.jpg is another one). You are obviously not required to fix anything, but they will be replaced at some point in time. elliot (talk) 18:41, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Fine - I'll get back to actually playing the game instead of trying to help the community. Thanks for your time. Screwball 18:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Any map is better than no map

Hi, I was wondering why you removed the location photo from the Alchemist's Shack‎ page. I think those are very helpful. I have attempted to use this wiki to find several places, and every written description has been completely useless. They often list locations that are immediately nearby, but this assumes that everyone has already found these nearby locations (but they've missed the location between them - even more unlikely). I have run into this problem so many times, (although I've barely started the game), I've gone to searching elsewhere for maps. It is simply much easier to see a map to find the general area, and to orient yourself while you're searching. If there were a better map to replace it, I would understand, but since the map is already available, I think it should be kept. Would you consider returning it to the page? I think it will help others as well. Thanks, --Amsuko 07:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Because there are plans to create a full game map (similar, I presume, to the one for Oblivion), though this can't be done fully until the Creation Kit is released. It is therefore pointless me spending time creating those mini-maps when they will, eventually, become redundant. I only did 6 of them before being informed of that fact, so I stopped creating them and those which remain are now "anomalies". My time will be better spent on the location images as there are still many pages with no images at all. Screwball 10:15, 2 January 2012 (UTC)