As time progresses it's increasingly likely that newer computers will have higher-resolution displays i.e. 4K, Apple's Retina, etc. I personally use a MacBook Pro with Retina display and one of the first things that I notice is the scaling that happens with some websites, this one being no exception. Are there any plans in the future - particularly with photo uploads by photographers - to require higher-resolution images? The days of 1024x768 are way behind us. I feel sometimes that this site is stuck in the past with respect to this topic. The recent changes to the site are good I think, but this is one area that needs improvement, and fast.

You'll find many photographers are unwilling to upload images at very high resolutions.

Even if uploading higher resolution images were an option, it will take many years before they represent anything other than a very small percentage of the total images.

Moore's Law and its many variations marches on. Higher bandwidths and better displays are very common now, with 4K displays approaching $500.
If photographers don't want to upload high-resolution, that is their choice of course. But forbidding high resolution seems very odd.

This is an end-use issue for me: I need to read instrument panels. Except in close-ups, that is usually impossible with the current "large" resolution. There are many other sites with aviation photos, of course, but this one has no peers.

I'm not sure what the issue is, as we allow for 1920x1080px photos. But it is up to the photographer whether he/she wants to upload in such a size and up to us to determine if the quality is good enough. 1000px is the bottom limit regarding possible sizes and those small resolutions still come in handy for difficult photos that have flaws showing at larger sizes but not at such a small size.

Kas, I am referring not to image resolution, but monitor resolution and display scaling.

Ah, then I likely misunderstood the issue at hand

I am not sure if this is the right thread for my observation, but searched the forum and couldn't find another thread. Please let me know if there is another ongoing discussion for the issue.

The photos on Airliners.net look pretty terrible on Retina display Macs. I have observed this for all photos irrespective of their size/resolution. The same photos look fine on older non-Retina Macs. It is as if the photos are being "stretched" or "zoomed in" beyond 100% Is this the same issue being discussed above? Or has anyone else experienced the same issue?

Is this a site related issue or is there something I can do on my Mac to make the photos look like they are supposed to look like?

Vivek

vivekman2006 wrote:

I am not sure if this is the right thread for my observation, but searched the forum and couldn't find another thread. Please let me know if there is another ongoing discussion for the issue.

The photos on Airliners.net look pretty terrible on Retina display Macs. I have observed this for all photos irrespective of their size/resolution. The same photos look fine on older non-Retina Macs. It is as if the photos are being "stretched" or "zoomed in" beyond 100% Is this the same issue being discussed above? Or has anyone else experienced the same issue?

Is this a site related issue or is there something I can do on my Mac to make the photos look like they are supposed to look like?

Vivek

It depends on the browser you use.

If you use Safari, it understands retina and non-retina elements. If a photo is "non-retina," it will get a 2x scaling. It might look a little softer, but it won't be blocky as it's not nearest-neighbor. This is the system-level scaling algorithm, it's the same if you opened the image up in Preview.

Other browsers may not handle HiDPI as well, as they may use their own scaling algorithms.

For images to look good on Retina displays, people would need to start uploading at least at 2x native resolution. So if you're used to 1024 wide, you'd need to upload at 2048 wide... which a.net forbids. Uploading at higher resolutions is difficult because screeners screen on 1x screens, not 2x screens, and a 1920x1080 on a 1x looks much, much larger than on a 2x where it appears at "half size" but twice the pixel density. Images tend to look better with more pixel density, and things might actually screen BETTER at 2x versus 1x... but that's a different kettle of fish.

The site would also need to be rewritten to detect 1x or 2x displays, and how to handle images at certain resolutions. Say anything that's less than 1920 wide doesn't get the 2x treatment. This isn't impossible to do as major photo sharing websites are able to handle this... but this website is held together by bailing wire and speed tape.

On the other hand photographers might not want to upload 2048 wide images, as that starts getting to around 4MP and you could make a reasonable small print out of it and people may not be interested in giving away that kind of quality. People might want more stringent watermarking capabilities if such things were offered.

dvincent wrote:

It depends on the browser you use.
If you use Safari, it understands retina and non-retina elements. If a photo is "non-retina," it will get a 2x scaling. It might look a little softer, but it won't be blocky as it's not nearest-neighbor. This is the system-level scaling algorithm, it's the same if you opened the image up in Preview.

I have seen this in both Safari & Chrome.

dvincent wrote:

For images to look good on Retina displays, people would need to start uploading at least at 2x native resolution. So if you're used to 1024 wide, you'd need to upload at 2048 wide... which a.net forbids. Uploading at higher resolutions is difficult because screeners screen on 1x screens, not 2x screens, and a 1920x1080 on a 1x looks much, much larger than on a 2x where it appears at "half size" but twice the pixel density. Images tend to look better with more pixel density, and things might actually screen BETTER at 2x versus 1x... but that's a different kettle of fish.

Absolutely. That is what i have realized too. For example, the original unedited hi-res image (typically in excess of 5000 wide) looks fantastic on the Retina display. But once you edit it, and scale it down to say 1200 (my usual upload size), it just looks terrible - both within Adobe PS (where it also appears incredibly small) & in the browser.

dvincent wrote:

The site would also need to be rewritten to detect 1x or 2x displays, and how to handle images at certain resolutions. Say anything that's less than 1920 wide doesn't get the 2x treatment. This isn't impossible to do as major photo sharing websites are able to handle this... but this website is held together by bailing wire and speed tape.

I wonder what the solution to this is. I can maybe try and upload every photo at 1600 pix wide, and hope they look better than 1200 pix wide. Is there anyone else out there that experienced the same issues and has worked out a solution?

dvincent wrote:

On the other hand photographers might not want to upload 2048 wide images, as that starts getting to around 4MP and you could make a reasonable small print out of it and people may not be interested in giving away that kind of quality. People might want more stringent watermarking capabilities if such things were offered.

True that.

Thanks,
Vivek