Resizing of Covers and Discs

[moppedz]

I stumbled across a lot of changes in the past in existing database objects regarding resizing to lower resolutions where the original wasn't really oversized.

I don't really know how to handle them. I found nothing on the moderation guideline, but personally as dual-monitor user dislike that pretty much.

I always saw the database as a concentrated preservation tool.

[SentaiBrad]

Well, bigger doesn't necessarily mean better when it comes to images. If there was a sharper, more color correct image, I would take that over a blurry or off larger picture. Even assume both images are just as sharp technically, but the smaller image has better colors or was scanned in better inherently, I'd rather take that than an off larger image. The best case scenario is to have a larger sized image, with good color, it's sharp and represents the original as best as it can. Sometimes people also don't think, and upload what ever they feel like, which happens. So it is a bit of a judgement call on the part of the moderators, but bigger doesn't always mean better.

Do you have any examples of where an image got smaller and worse where the image that it replaced was larger and a good image? I don't get what you mean about something being oversized (in what context specifically) or that dual monitor users don't like larger images? I would also agree that the database is a preservation tool in the long run as well, but the better image should be available for a game. Unless it's super tiny, where it completely defeats the purpose and it would get distorted or blurry when put in to LB or BB, I don't think going from a larger image to a smaller image needs to be a bad thing, if there is a good quality difference.

There really isn't much in the Guidelines about front and back box art for two main reasons, Quality is very subjective to a user or some people can't see color differences too well, or a game simply doesn't have any good quality box art out there. If a game is super obscure and only had it's box art scanned once, and it's a bit blurry or off color, we're gonna take it if there's nothing else available. There was a user a while back who was uploading over sharpened images (or that's what I remember it as), and several moderators, including myself, had agreed they didn't look any better than the existing art. So it's all a bit subjective. If bad artwork gets in, and it can be replaced, I would hope that someone see's it and updates it.

[moppedz]

They are already out of my queue, since i skipped most of them, so i can't link to one right now.

Most of them used the same quality picture, only downscaled. When they would be of better quality i wouldn't really mind but from my judgement there was no quality gain, just decreasing resolution.

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I don't get what you mean about something being oversized (in what context specifically) or that dual monitor users don't like larger images?

The context is someone replaces a picture with for example 10000x10000 pixels and 10MB with a 1000x1000 pixels and 0.8MB. That would comprehensable for me and i would see 10000x10000 as oversized.

But the ones i am corresponding to, were more like 1200 x 900 resized to 700 x whatever, without quality gain. They looked like someone was taking the original and only resized it for the sake of being lower resolution and maybe smaller filesize. Hard to explain. And since I can't see who is contributing changes, i can't judge if there is someone changing entrys to it's own personal preferences, or if these are independent changes from different people for example doing their first steps in contributing changes.

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, I would agree with you here, changing the resolution to a slightly smaller resolution for the same of maybe saving 500kb is rather dumb. There could have been another reason, or they saw the smaller one being of better quality, who knows. Without seeing them myself, and just going on them being smaller for the sake of being smaller, I probably would have just declined it myself.

[davyfreeman]

I have seen something like this aswell.

Someone resized high res clear logos to something like 200x400 and labeled it as "properly sized". I wasn't sure how to moderate that, though I would tend to reject it, cause who knows how BigBox will evolve and maybe someday could make use of high res logos. Would be a shame to loose images of higher quality, especially if someone put a lot of work into cutting out the logos like those guys from the request thread.

What do you guys think is a proper size?

[SentaiBrad]

Big Box already uses high res logo's, it just resizes them. A smaller resolution image across an entire library can have some better performance, but you moderate it with a no. If the smaller image is not actually better, then having the best quality is best. You can redirect them to this if you want. If someone needs the images to be in a smaller resolution for performance, then maybe we can do something with that in the future, but the Database is currently going to get the best quality. At a gigantic resolution too, it might be a reconstructed Clear Logo, so we might need that category if it doesn't exist, but yea.

[dionymnia]

A large majority of clear logos are around the 400px width, based not only on the Launchbox database but also on other sites/resources. While I don't really have a problem with the much larger (700-1000px width) logos, I do wish that regular Launchbox (the application) would resize them when displaying them with a game. I know BigBox does this, but I do most of my "curation" of my game collection in the regular Launchbox. I don't use fanart backgrounds, so instead, when I click on a game, it shows the clear logo centered behind the game titles. The overwhelming bulk of games have clear logos that neatly fit in the small center area of the background, and then there are the random games with 700+ px width that all of a sudden take up the whole background.

It's perhaps a minor thing for other people, but for me, having clear logos that vary so much between big and small sizes (without automatically resizing them, or at least giving the option for them to be resized) really disrupts my sense of consistency as I click through different games. I think an adjustment to that, while it would involve the coding of the app itself, would be more sensible than adding a whole different category for reconstructed logos.

 

[SentaiBrad]

Reconstructed is more for Clear Logo's that get redrawn, that's usually why they get to be so big (not always). You can resize them on your own, with batch tools. I would say though, to make sure that you make sure to keep the aspect ratio so that way they don't get screwed up. Otherwise, an alternative is to use a custom background image instead, and use Image Priorities to display the Clear Logo in a place you'd like more?