Image quality problem

[wfs]

Hi,

I compared the same photos loaded in my coppermine site and flickr, and noticed the flickr photos,  http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfs1/87155577/ , are much clearer and sharper than that in my site, http://photograffs.com/displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pos=12 .

Is there anything I need to do to correct the quality problem in my site?  I read somewhere that the theme - css styles might be the cause.  Please advice how I can rectify the problem... and exactly how to get it done...

Appreciate your help !!

Thank you so much.

[Joachim Müller]

Can't check, as you require users to log in to actually see your pics. Provide a non-admin test user account - post username and password. Supporters are reluctant to look into your issues if you make it so hard for them to help. Taking into account your negative karma record, this is not a bright thing to do...

[wfs]

Hi  Gau Gau,
Thank you for the super fast reply.
here's the username : test  and password :  test

Pse help.....

[Joachim Müller]

I'm not going to beg to let me support you - I get

No image to display

(see screenshot). I'm out of this thread. Bye.

[wfs]

Hi Gau Gau !

I really appreciate the effort you take to help. It's never my intention to test your (or anyone else's) patience !
Honestly, I think you guys at Coppermine are really doing great work, spending endless time and effort to help us who really love this superb software you guys wrote.

I'm sorry if I had not quite did what you had asked.
There's really no explanation  for that -  it's just that I did not quite understand what is required of me. 
Given my very limited knowledge of computers... believe me.... I'm trying.

Well, I have now uploaded the image to the album.
I hope you can help. There's really no way I can solve the problem by myself given my elementary knowledge of computer programming.

Thanks so much.

[Joachim Müller]

Actual permanent link to the file in question is http://www.photograffs.com/displayimage.php?pos=-1443 instead of http://photograffs.com/displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pos=12

The Flickr image is more than 5 times the file size of the coppermine image, so it's little surprise that the quality of the Flickr image is superior. This may to a certain extent be related to the quality settings (compression setting) on the Flickr server and on your coppermine server, but basically I guess that Flickr doesn't use GD2 to resize pics, but some advanced image manipulation library. If the server coppermine runs on is yours to administer, you might experiment with installing ImageMagick and then use it instead of GD2 to resize your images.
If you don't have that option available, resize the pics on your client before you upload them to coppermine, leaving the resources-consuming task of resizing to a desktop app that doesn't have to be optimized for low resources consumption, but for quality of the result. You have to understand that Coppermine itself doesn't come into play when resizing: it leaves the job to the image library on your server. On 90% of all shared webhsoting servers, GD2 does this job. As suggested, it is mainly optimized for consuming as little CPU circles as possible. Use your favorite desktop app to resize your pics on your client to exactly the size you have set as a limit in coppermine's config (in your case 500 pixels). After having done this, upload the pic and add it to coppermine's database. Coppermine will not attempt to resize it if the dimensions aren't greater than what you have set in your config options and display the high quality pic you created on your desktop app.

Joachim

P.S. Attached the images for ease of use of other potential posters to this thread

[wfs]

Hi Gau Gau,

Thank you so much for your time and effort to explain.
You guys are a God-send !