Talk:Template picture size 420 vs 434

I'm still learning my way around, but am curious how the size for pictures in the templates was derived. Was it part of the MediaWiki program (I'm assuming here that this site uses that software)? I just started playing with a free picture editor called GIMP and cropped an item description window as close as I could without losing any of the border frills and stuff. It came out to exactly 434 pixels. I played with cropping off some of the frills, scaling the 434 pixels to 420 and some other things. Each made the description window look not as good as 434 pixels. I know at this point it is probably too late to change things even if it was desirable, but I am curious about the choice. Also, is it preferable to reduce the number of colors for description window pictures? It seems to cut the file to about 1/3 of its size. Useraverage (Contributions • Message) 22:54, August 21, 2012 (EDT)


 * It is fine to have your image come out to 434px wide, if that is what looks the best... When you upload it, and the template renders it on the page, it will automatically resize it to 420px... No need to worry. Just crop it as crisp as you can, and don't cut off too much of the border... I simply use MS-Paint for my screenshots, even though I have gimp as well if I want to make it a special screenshot (occasionally I'll make one with a transparent background if I think the item is too epic to crop the wings off.

ShoeMaker (Contributions • ) 23:02, August 21, 2012 (EDT)


 * Okay. But still the text in a description window is more clear if it is not resized either by me or by the wiki. Again, was just curious about the choice (or lack thereof if it is the wiki software that does it). It would be nice if there was no trade off in how crisp the text was. Yes, people could click the picture and get a 434 pixel version, but it wouldn't be on the page with the rest of the stuff, and I didn't really think about clicking on an image until I saw it mentioned. This may seem to be nit picking, but I am a very curious person. I was very happy with how GIMP lets me zoom in and adjust the corners of a selection for cropping one at a time. Useraverage (Contributions &bull; Message) 23:46, August 21, 2012 (EDT)



The reason for the choice was to maintain full item detail and image quality, but keep the image size down to a minimum so it fits well on lower rez screens.

420 is the exactly size of a description image, with the wings clipped, but not the borders. We maintain the borders because that is an important piece of info:
 * Platinum = High/Raid quality item
 * Gold = Named item
 * Silver = regular item, can be placed into crafting altar usually

The wings don't tell you anything and look the same always, so they should be clipped. If you crop the image to clip the wings, it should maintain 100% quality and be about 420px wide (wings are about 14px). In addition, its difficult for most users to accurately maintain the image cleanly with wings, without including cruft undernearth.. Just cropping the image to 420 is much easier. Personally I just grab it quickly with a rectangle tool, then canvas the pic to 420x whatever height. GIMP should allow this without issue and without quality loss. 142.134.212.26 23:55, August 21, 2012 (EDT)


 * I am using the Blackbird skin. Items don't have wings in this skin, thus there are less problems. The full item is around 416-417 px wide. I am using MS Paint. First I align the top left corner, then reduce the width to ~416, and then expand it again to exactly 420 px. Adding the few pixels back helps a lot with image quality as rendered by our wiki.

--Cru121 (Contributions • Message) 00:09, August 22, 2012 (EDT)


 * Thanks for the info! This is exactly what I wanted to know. I was using the wall to the right of the gate (facing the gate to the Market) in House Cannith as a background. I would zoom in with the 9 key on the numeric keypad and use alt-Z to get rid of the UI. I guess I never realized that the border color and the wings changed depending on the type of item. So I'll start clipping wings and exact sizing the crop to 420 pixels in GIMP.

Useraverage (Contributions • Message) 00:27, August 22, 2012 (EDT)