Question about my image quality
polycounter lvl 14
Hey guys,
I'm not sure which forum section to put this under, but it's not a portfolio thread so I'm not putting in the Pimp & Preview section.
I was wondering if a couple people could do me a quick favor. I was just on my girlfriend's Mac that has very different monitor settings than mine and I was looking at my portfolio. On her monitor the quality of the images is absolutely atrocious but they look fine on my monitor.
Could a few of you go to my portfolio and look through the 2D and 3D images and tell me which ones (if any) look really bad on your monitor? If I can get some good feedback I'm going to resave the images at a higher quality.
That's all, thanks to all those that help in advance
!
I'm not sure which forum section to put this under, but it's not a portfolio thread so I'm not putting in the Pimp & Preview section.
I was wondering if a couple people could do me a quick favor. I was just on my girlfriend's Mac that has very different monitor settings than mine and I was looking at my portfolio. On her monitor the quality of the images is absolutely atrocious but they look fine on my monitor.
Could a few of you go to my portfolio and look through the 2D and 3D images and tell me which ones (if any) look really bad on your monitor? If I can get some good feedback I'm going to resave the images at a higher quality.
That's all, thanks to all those that help in advance
!
Replies
More input is always welcome!
I see unacceptable (to me if it was my own work) JPEG artifacting around the first red signature when I click on the first image on your site. But the rest of the image is OK. Thin pure red lines are really hard for JPEG to compress well, I see green and purple splotches all around your sig.
Personal artistic concerns aside, JPEG artifacting is a given for a web portfolio, so when I'm evaluating someone for employment I don't knock them for a few artifacts here and there. Only if it really gets in the way of seeing their work.
So I see artifacts like this as more of an artistic vanity thing than any kind of actual practical issue. As an artist I don't want it, but as an employer I accept it.
Typically we're told to make it as small as possible without "too much" loss of quality, but I really would rather have a 500kb JPG with little to no artifacting than a 250kb jpg with noticeable artifacting.
Game companies typically have amazing internet, though, right? So having 500kb jpgs shouldn't be an issue?
Your file size as-is is fine. The presentation however is a pain, lightbox takes forever to show me the pic. I heard there's an option to speed it up, kill the transition & loading B.S.
Also the zip link doesn't seem to have that first image in it, so if I want to d/l it I have to wade thru your page source.
Black and white thumbs aren't my thing either, dulls down your page a ton, forces me to rollover each to see what it might be. Also they're cropped which is another annoyance, can't see what I'm looking at.
Minor annoyances all, but they add up. Read this Your Portfolio Repels Jobs, and pay attention, the points made are all ones that make sense from an employer's POV.
To your advantage however, you label each with your contact info. And the artwork looks good.
I can change the thumbnails to all have colors, I agree that's a smart move. The lightbox I will have to deal with in the near future... I was thinking of using one from here: http://rachalduggan.com/
Or should I just not even use a lightbox at all?
My final question is about cropping. Could you elaborate on that? How else should I present the thumbnails?
The less clicks, the better your chances. The faster I see the full-size piece, the better your chances. The less I have to guess, the better your chances. When I'm in a hurry to evaluate your work, as assuredly all the employers are, Lightbox just gets in the way.
Cropping... check the thumbs on my site, for the most part they aren't cropped. You see the full width of the image, just smaller. Less guessing about what I'm going to see. I'm trying to filter your site, see the fewest pieces I have to see in order to evaluate whether you're the person to hire, or one of the other 10 people whose resumes the PA just plunked on my desk. It's harsh, but that's the reality. So the easier you make it for me, the more likely you are to get my eyeballs.
On your page, as a single example, in the fourth thumb over you should show the whole width of that first tree shot, shrunk down into its thumbnail. Sharpen filter helps thumbs read better. I use Photoshop's Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen, then Ctrl-Shift-F and dial it down to 50 or 20. Full strength has too much "ringing".
Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but I would have paid gold for this kind of advice when I started out. Others might have different opinions though...
I will probably can the whole lightbox idea then. The reason I was confused about the cropping of thumbnails is because the "Your Portfolio Repels Jobs" thread mentions Pior's site and he crops every single thumbnail.
So some changes I'll definitely make are removing the lightbox and saturating the thumbnails. I'll have to gather more info from more people about cropping. I do see the legitimacy behind your point, though.
You'd been a big help, so hopefully a few more people can tell me how they feel about thumbs and I'll decide on what I should do.
Thanks a lot
I've been going through and resaving my images. I have a lot of "long" images on my site because they show the conceptual process, so they are up around 800KB. I believe that should only take you 3-4 seconds for the entire picture to load on standard broadband.
I spoke with my web programmer and we'll be working on removing the light boxes soon and having the images load in their own html page like Pior's site.
I'm not digging your bkg image though, I wouldn't use it in the bkg nor lead the 2D portfolio with it. Just my opinion, but it's too much a stereotypical type demon, especially the face, a skull w/ not so creative proportions.
I hesitate to mention it since you clearly like the pic. It just doesn't show off your creativity as much as your other pieces. I'd put something else in the bkg, like the tree painting or the broken cathedral or maybe the silhouettes lower down in the biker pic.
Just to be clear too, we're not hiring these days, so I'm not in eval mode. I'm just a guy giving advice. You probably wouldn't fit the kind of games we do either, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
All that being said, your work shows a lot of promise, I expect you'll be working in the industry fairly soon if you pursue it.
You should put your portfolio up in the Pimp section if you haven't already, get some other opinions.
I understand what you mean with the lack of creativity with the demon character. I was slightly hesitant to create it but I needed something new and thought it at least showed a decent level of technique and execution. I can easily change the background and rearrange the order of the images.
You've been a huge help
I probably won't post my official Portfolio thread in Pimp & Preview until I'm closer to graduating (which is in June 2010).