#1 2006
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You’ll notice that some jpeg images have compression artefacts - funny coloured squares of rubbish data.
There’s several quick fixes that can be applied to an image to enhance its appearance, but note that resizing it to 64x64 pixels will mean most of it goes to waste (as finer details tend to disappear in the process).
The ‘Smudge Tool’ (shortcut R) set to 20% can be used to wipe blocky artefacts into smoother, nicer looking colour graduations - be careful however to not smudge away small detailed areas (loss of definition, or sharpness).
Small tweaks of brightness/contrast (Image > Adjustments > Brightness/contrast) will bring out details otherwise lost in overly dark images.
Hue/Saturation (Crtl + U) can be used to change the tone of an image, or give it a coloured tint.
A subtle touch of the sharpening filter can bring some details back out (Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask).
Here several image enhancements were carried out, and are easy to see on the full size picture, but when saved to avatar size all but disappear.
This is the make-or-break part of designing an avatar picture because a lot of images don’t look too good when scaled down.
A good tip is to quickly scale an image down before doing any work on it, to see if it’s even worth proceeding (Undo is your friend).
When you are ready to scale your avatar down to the final 64x64 pixel image, there are four important settings to pay attention to (Image Size, shortcut Alt + Ctrl + I).
The picture needs to be reduced to a 64x64 pixels, with a resolution of 72 pixels per inch (or ‘monitor resolution’).
Down sizing an image means excess information needs to be thrown out, so a filter needs to be applied so it still looks nice. Photoshop has bicubic/sharper/smoother so use trial and error to see which works best for you.
After sizing, re-check the image for any issues that may have become visible (dodgy spots of colour, brightness/contrast issues, etc.)
Note: For avatar pictures with a border, downsizing can cause colour bleeding - the borders change colour slightly. Simply redraw the border again in it’s proper colour.
When heavily downsizing pictures containing layers, Photoshop can introduce crappy anti-aliasing issues at the edges (left pic). You will find that flattening the image just before resizing stops this (right pic).
Always keep a copy of your work at it’s original resolution, with layers intact, just in case.
Saving small jpeg images, and accurately estimating the final file size is difficult for graphics programs to do. A few kB’s off means a lot when the target is just 24kB.
Therefore save copies of the final image at several quality levels (from 100%, downwards) and try to upload the first one under 24kB as your avatar. If that fails reduce the quality yet another notch.
An alternate method which some people employ is to save the image as a bitmap, and use a free jpeg converting program (MS Paint introduces horrible compression artefacts and should be avoided).
To successfully upload an image it must be a jpeg under 24kB, and sitting on your hard drive - uploading directly from a website or Photobucket/tinypic will fail.
If you don’t see your new avatar picture, try pressing Ctrl + F5 to refresh your browser.
The next step is to clear the cache and try refresh again.
Shutting down and restarting the browser may also help, or trying a different browser altogether.
The common reason for upload failures is a picture file size too close to 24kB.
Special mention to Orcone for the assistance - always helps to have a PS master handy ;)