What happened to my Railwire images?

[mark.hinds]

Question to admins:

I no longer see any images on my layout construction thread https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=28831.msg305681#msg305681.  Same for my contribution to the MTL PS-1 kitbash thread.  Etc.  They were all hosted on Railwire.  Has this changed? 

If I am still allowed to host images on Railwire for Railwire threads, I'd appreciate a hint on how to fix this. 

Thanks in advance, MH

(EDITED to add URL)

[GaryHinshaw]

I don't know.  Do you have any specific examples you could point to?  When I skimmed through your post history I saw a number of posts with Railwire-hosted images that were still intact, for example:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=44963.msg581408#msg581408

but none that were broken.  I did however see a number of posts with links to Google-Photo-hosted images that were broken, for example:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=45350.msg588532#msg588532

This is probably related to Google's policy changes a few years ago, and is outside of our control.  However, if you do have an example of a broken Railwire-hosted photo, please post it.

[mark.hinds]

Thanks for the response, Gary.

I was under the impression that I had replaced my original Google-hosted images (when they changed their hosting policies) with Railwire-hosted images.  However, the URL says it's Google-hosted.  So either I mis-remembered (most likely), or Railwire has restored an older version of my Layout thread containing the old URLS. 

I have a follow-up question pertaining to restoring images to my layout thread, down below.  If you could comment, I'd appreciate it. 

MH

(EDITED from original incorrect response...)

[wcfn100]

For example, see my layout thread, here:  https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=28831.msg305681#msg305681.  Images were there 6 months ago when I last looked at it, but no longer.  All images in my layout thread were originally outside-hosted (Google), but were re-hosted on Railwire a couple of years ago. 

The links for those photos are still google.

Jason

[mark.hinds]

The links for those photos are still google.

Jason

Yes, I noticed that when working on replacing the first image, contemporarily with your post.  Thanks for pointing it out though.  I have corrected my post above accordingly. 

MH

[mark.hinds]

Hi Gary,

I've just been restoring some of the images in my Layout Engineering thread.  Can we control the imgage file sizes when uploading images to Railwire?  Certain images are more useful in a larger format, such as an overall layout view, or a detailed overall layout plan. 

I notice that Railwire reduces the size of uploaded images, presumably to save server space, but I don't see a pattern, or any way to control it.  In my Railwire "gallery", listed file sizes vary from about 40K to 400K, with no apparently relationship to the original file sizes on my PC, though the originals were generally larger.  I would think that if there is a size limit, that the size limit should at least be consistent. 

(BTW, I donate between $25. and $50. annually to TMP (The Miniatures Page) where I post a lot.  I would be willing to pay some reasonable amount to support Railwire, especially if it allowed the occasional larger image.)

MH

[peteski]

It is not by file size. Railwire, upon upload, automatically resizes photos down to 1024 pixels in width.  That should be more than high enough resolution for photos used in an online  forum.   But if you feed some multi-megapixel image to the forum downloader, it might puke.  I like to resize my photos to 1024 or even 800 pixels across before I  upload them to the forum.

I'm sure this is done to at least somewhat conserve space - after all, this site is not a photo hosting site with Petabytes of free storage - just an online forum with space for storing photos related to the posts.  I'm for one very happy that we are allowed to upload the photos locally - that guarantees that the photos will be visible for as long as the forum is online. The same cannot be said for linking to photos form other sites (as it has been proven many times - your example is one such instance).

If you decide to upload the photos to TRW, I recommend using the gallery instead of just uploading them to the posts themselves.  IN the gallery (if you set it up properly) you can neatly organize the photos.  Plus there have been instances of photos attached to posts disappearing with no way of bringing them back. This does not happen with the gallery photos.

[mark.hinds]

@peteski

I think there's more to it than "resizes photos down to 1024 pixels".  I just uploaded one here, https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=28831.msg305681#msg305681 , which you can see is 1,280px × 603px in size after clicking on the first image, and checking image information in the popup window.  Also, that doesn't seem to explain variation in the size of the final files (differing by a factor of up to 10, per the file sizes quoted in one's Gallery).  BTW I realize that the compression technology used in image files is more than just a function of the number of pixels, but a factor of 10???

Maybe the admins can comment further.

MH

[peteski]

@peteski

I think there's more to it than "resizes photos down to 1024 pixels".  I just uploaded one here, https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=28831.msg305681#msg305681 , which you can see is 1,280px × 603px in size after clicking on the first image, and checking image information in the popup window.  Also, that doesn't seem to explain variation in the size of the final files (differing by a factor of up to 10, per the file sizes quoted in one's Gallery).  BTW I realize that the compression technology used in image files is more than just a function of the number of pixels, but a factor of 10???

Maybe the admins can comment further.

MH

Not trying to be argumentative, but why the file size matters for any images uploaded here?  Photos posted here are just fused for illustrative purposes, not for publishing, or anything that requires high quality images.

Unlike a uncompressed formats where the file size is the same for all the files which have same pixel size, JPGs are lossy format where different levels of compression take place when the file is saved.  You can even that the same original image and save it as JPG with different compression levels, and the file size will be different for each compression level.

As for the image you are using for example, it is uploaded to the TRW gallery.  When I click on that brings up the TRWs gallery preview window.  There the image is shown smaller than the image you uploaded to the gallery.  I took the direct link to the .jpeg image and saved it on my computer. The file size there shows up as 82kB.  The size in the gallery shows 79.55kB.  Dimensions are (as you mentoned) 1280 x 603. That reminds me, TRW downsizes the images down to 1280, not 1024 across. I use 1024 when I size my images for TRW uploads.  You image has large areas with no details or variations in colors or details (the white paper background). That type of image compresses quite well.

I'm still not sure where is the big size mismatch?  What are you comparing that 79.55 (or 82) kB size to? Are you comparing it to the original image you still have on you computer?  What is its pixel dimension? What  is its file size?

[peteski]

I also noticed that while you did upload the images to the gallery, you just dumped them into the "General" bucket.  That is a huge container for images uploaded by everybody who did not set up their own gallery. If you ever want to find them again (to reuse them, or just to see what you have uploaded already), you will have a really hard time finding them.

To organize your photos to make them easier to find, I would suggest that you create your own galley structure and upload the photos there.  For example on how to do that, see https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=42854.0 . I know it looks scary complicated, it really isn't. And once you create your categories, it will be easy to keep your images organized (and add more categories as you go along).

[mark.hinds]

Not trying to be argumentative, but why the file size matters for any images uploaded here?  Photos posted here are just fused for illustrative purposes, not for publishing, or anything that requires high quality images.

It's not so much file size as image resolution.  An example of where that matters is the second image in my layout construction thread, which is of the entire layout as it existed in 2013.  It is useful for a viewer if desired to be able to expand the image to see details of the construction.  For example, one guy wanted to know where the lower return loop was.  You can actually see this fairly well on the original image on my PC, but not so well on the reduced size Railwire version.  Hope that answers your question...

(text deleted)

I'm still not sure where is the big size mismatch?  What are you comparing that 79.55 (or 82) kB size to? Are you comparing it to the original image you still have on you computer?  What is its pixel dimension? What  is its file size?

When I look at my Railwire Gallery, I ATM see 20-30 images.  I achieve this by selecting "Gallery" - "My Images" up at the top of the web page.  I assume you see the same on your browser.  When I do this, I see the images in my Gallery vary in size from about 400kB to 40kB, and that this has little to do with the resolution.  Perhaps as you say, it's just how JPEG compression works out.  I need to read up on that. 

MH

[Chris333]

Pretty sure I put all of my photos here under general, but I can also find all of my images somehow. On a phone now or I'd be more exact.

[peteski]

It's not so much file size as image resolution.  An example of where that matters is the second image in my layout construction thread, which is of the entire layout as it existed in 2013.  It is useful for a viewer if desired to be able to expand the image to see details of the construction.  For example, one guy wanted to know where the lower return loop was.  You can actually see this fairly well on the original image on my PC, but not so well on the reduced size Railwire version.  Hope that answers your question...

Absolutely, resolution of a photo is greatly related to its size.  For example a 12M pixel JPG will be larger than a 1M pixel JPG file.  But the size of each file acna also be somewhat controlled by selecting different compression and smoothing values when saving the file.

The fact is that the forum will downsample larger photos down to 1280 pixels across.  Seems reasonable to me.  I guess that's why I re-sample my images before posting - that way I know exactly what they will look like when they are uploaded. If something is unclear, I either split it into 2 separate images, or crop the original (if that  is a viable alternative).  That way I have no surprises.

When I look at my Railwire Gallery, I ATM see 20-30 images.  I achieve this by selecting "Gallery" - "My Images" up at the top of the web page.  I assume you see the same on your browser. 

True, I forgot about that.  But early on I realized that I'll have too many photos to easily find them in a single bucket, so I started to organize them better.  With over 900 photos uploaded, I woudl have to go to the end of "My Images" to find any of the photos I uploaded to the General category. What stinks about that is that I cannot move them into one of the other categories I set up. Seems that General is isolated from My Gallery.

I looked at your gallery, and it only shows 7 photos there (and only you can see all of your "my photos").
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?action=gallery;su=user;su=user;u=2386

When I do this, I see the images in my Gallery vary in size from about 400kB to 40kB, and that this has little to do with the resolution.  Perhaps as you say, it's just how JPEG compression works out.  I need to read up on that. 
MH

Yes, the degree of compression and smoothing in the JPG format does make appreciable difference of the file size of the saved images.

[mark.hinds]

Seems that General is isolated from My Gallery.

Interesting; I had forgotten that I had two specific "My Gallery" categories set up.  Apparently most of my images are in "General", and as you say, we can't reclassify them into our personal "My Gallery" categories. 

I just noticed, however, that if we go to the general "My Gallery" which we all own, and select one of the images in it, and select "edit" for that image, we see down at the bottom the interesting choice "Copy item to another category [Copy item]".  I wonder what this does.  It would be very nice if it would transfer or copy the image to one of our selected personal "My Gallery" categories, without breaking the the image's links to the various threads it is used in ... 

MH

[Chris333]

Now that I'm at home. Since most of my photos hosted here are for someone else and not really my modeling, I upload them under general.

If I go to the gallery right now and click "my gallery" there is nothing there, but if I click "my images" everything I've uploaded shows up:
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?action=gallery;sa=myimages;u=109

If I was putting my own layout photos or something like that guess I would start my own gallery.