Hello Side7!
I've finally got some finished art uploaded, and I'm transitioning my comic universe from furry to humanoid. I could really really use some critique, particularly regarding coloring. I may pretend I know what I'm doing when I color things, but I really don't. My latest image is at the following address:
http://www.side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/Display.pl?act=image&iid=327625
Thanks so much!!
This is an unrelated thought, but you might want to increase the compression of your images or otherwise find a way to decrease the file size. 700kb is really way too big for an image of these dimensions. Personally, I refuse to load images any larger than about 300k, max, partially because I have limited bandwidth available each month. Increasing compression just a little bit can have a dramatic effect on file size while retaining quality.
Is increasing compression normally done during the scanning process? I use GraphicConverter to resize and can't find anything about file compression.
Typically, compression is done on the final save, when you're finished with your work and want to post it somewhere.
Normally, I scan in my picture as a .bmp; do all the manipulation I want to make with it on my graphics program (the gimp), such as coloring, cleanup, etc.; and then save it once as a full-size .bmp and then resize for my final, uploadable picture. Typically, I also have the cleaned-up scanned lineart saved as its own file.
For the actual compression, I first resize the picture. A good rule of thumb is to scale the picture so that a viewer doesn't have to scroll in order to see all of it. I typically prefer to make the height or width (whichever is longer) under 700 pixels across.
Next, I save it as either a .jpg or a .png. .Jpgs allows one to adjust how much the picture is compressed, but I don't like them as they tend to leave artifacts in the picture. In my opinion, .pngs are better. Though a person can't choose how much to compress a picture with a .png, it usually isn't a worry.
Thank you!!