Game titles project...

[scifi]

Originally Posted by TCD

Yep, I meant without compression The program I used had a '100%' quality setting which I assumed to mean 'without compression', but given the result... I'll have a look again tomorrow and thanks for keeping up with the changes scifi

Edit: I think I've got it Please reload the miscshots for 1st Devision Manager a few times and check the second version again. Seems that one is 'pixel perfect'.

Just to compare here is the PNG file... I still believe that there is a distinct difference in quality.. what do you think?
If it's no trouble for you please add it on the miscshots to compare it!

[TCD]

Well, the colours are a bit off on the JPG, but at least the pixels are... well, pixels Anyway, I'll have a talk how to handle this (I'm not happy with having them as JPGs either, just to make it clear). I'll get back to you tomorrow, as it's a bit late now

[scifi]

Of course... thank you for all your effort and I want you to know that I really appreciate it!
Meanwhile, I will try to see if there is any other way to process a file with the minimum loss of resolution... we will keep in touch!
Good night!

[DH]

Photoshop CS4 seems to deal with these images reasonably well when converting them to jpg's, despite it crashing on me a few times before I managed to make the conversion.

I temp set my conversion to 11 Quality @ baseline (standard) and I get almost the same result as you, with a fare amount of pixelation. I also have discovered, your jpg images are v1.1 Truecolor and mine are v1.2 Truecolor. I hear CS5 & CS6's way of dealing with the jpg compression is noticeably different than CS4 and CS4 appears to do a much better job, so if you have CS4 I suggest you make a comparison to check the results, although you have mentioned that you have also tried various other programs but with exactly the same result, so it may not be the CS versions.

My results from .png to 12 Quality maximum @ baseline (Standard) jpg seems to be almost no different just very slight pixelation as you can see from the results below, and far less pixelation than your tests with CS5. Obviously download them for comparison in PS

tbh, there's no higher quality than what's below in jpg, no matter what people say, there is no lossless conversion to be made out of standard jpg's, there's always going to be some deformation somewhere. Besides, you really need to blow these things up to actually see what's wrong.

I wouldn't be happy with those images as jpg's either, I absolutely hate them for this kind of imagery, as it degrades them from their original quality.

Oh! And nice to know someone else dabbled with CorelDraw/Photo-Paint, I got up to CD-9 before moving over to Photoshop full time

[scifi]

Originally Posted by DH

Photoshop CS4 seems to deal with these images reasonably well when converting them to jpg's, despite it crashing on me a few times before I managed to make the conversion.

I temp set my conversion to 11 Quality @ baseline (standard) and I get almost the same result as you, with a fare amount of pixelation. I also have discovered, your jpg images are v1.1 Truecolor and mine are v1.2 Truecolor. I hear CS5 & CS6's way of dealing with the jpg compression is noticeably different than CS4 and CS4 appears to do a much better job, so if you have CS4 I suggest you make a comparison to check the results, although you have mentioned that you have also tried various other programs but with exactly the same result, so it may not be the CS versions.

My results from .png to 12 Quality maximum @ baseline (Standard) jpg seems to be almost no different just very slight pixelation as you can see from the results below, and far less pixelation than your tests with CS5. Obviously download them for comparison in PS

tbh, there's no higher quality than what's below in jpg, no matter what people say, there is no lossless conversion to be made out of standard jpg's, there's always going to be some deformation somewhere. Besides, you really need to blow these things up to actually see what's wrong.

I wouldn't be happy with those images as jpg's either, I absolutely hate them for this kind of imagery, as it degrades them from their original quality.

Oh! And nice to know someone else dabbled with CorelDraw/Photo-Paint, I got up to CD-9 before moving over to Photoshop full time

Thank you DH for your answer which really justifies why we should use PNG instead of JPEG.... whatever we do the result will be always with pixelation... even if it's not noticeable in x1 view, when you try to magnify it to x2 or more the result is dreadful... it's the reason why HOL is using PNG in DBS and screenshots... to preserve the quality at high standards.
This title may be not very helpful to support my point of view.. if you use larger and more complex titles, for instance Defender of the Crown... the result will be extremely disappointing!

IMHO, there are 2 solutions to this problem if we want to continue with this project and provide something that will last. Either RCK expands the use of more than one formats on miscshots section or we should use another area of HOL's db to host the image made that can support PNG files... in screenshots maybe?
I don't know if this is appropriate though.. after all, RCK has the final saying to everything... I'm just laying out options!

I'm really excited with the progress of the project so far... it makes me happy to revive titles in this way and I always believed that they are small pieces of art and imagination... now, my artistic side is talking!
A very imaginative thought was put on the table a few lines backwards... I would love to see a game title printed on a t-shirt and I might give it a try... geeky huh?
In order to do that we should preserve the transparency and the highest quality...

DH, I love using various forms of expression.. Corel is superb program and very powerful and I use it with drawing and linear depictions.. on the other hand CS is superb in image processing although when I need to print or publish something I use Illustrator.... every respectful designer or printing company uses Illustrator or the correspondent Apple's software.

[DH]

My honest advice, forget about jpg's with these images, and continue to do them in .png format.

I also can see why RCK used jpg's for the miscshots, it's because the images that are uploaded, in general, are of a fairly large resolution, so to keep them at their minimum, jpg was the only way, also the type and nature of image won't suffer so badly either or really be that noticeable, whereas clean cut images like from the amiga with the solid blocks of colour, will always suffer due to the jpg limitations.

The only way forward that I can see, is that RCK adds the .png format to the miscshot template, but he's going to have to add limitations on the image resolution, because if someone were to add a 2000x2000 px .png image, the filesize is going to be huge compared to the jpg equivalent, and it would severely decrease HDD space. So maybe setting this .png size to a max of 320x256, which is the native PAL screen res of the Amiga But don't expect RCK to agree, this will mean he has to re-code the miscshots template to accommodate the .png and the max .png image resolution.

[scifi]

I expected that this modification could entail a lot of re-programming and lots of effort from RCK. That's why I proposed a more fair and less time consuming solution... to host the image in a different section of HOL's db where png is supported... screenshots section is closer to reality because what I made is a modified version of the title screen.
What do you think about this proposition?

One way or another I will keep working on the project using PNG format which is the most appropriate... after all, I love what I'm doing at the moment... I just hope that we will find a convenient solution for all this stuff!

[TCD]

Actually I think we postpone the whole idea until the technical details are sorted (or just skip it for HOL). Cody offered to host them on Lore and I think that's the better choice. The conversion to JPG or putting them into screenshots sounds like a pretty 'bended' way to have them on HOL to be honest, so I'd suggest to keep them on Lore for the time being.

[s2325]

http://clippingmagic.com/

[DH]

@s2325

I don't know if you realize this, but scifi is more than capable of removing the backgrounds with ease using Photoshop I doubt he would want to take that control out of his hands either and leave it in the hands of an automated website, and nor would I myself.

Besides, I would imagine that would be only capable of removing backgrounds from the most simplest of images and would fail miserably when presented with the more complex stuff that scifi will undoubtedly be doing later.

[scifi]

Originally Posted by TCD

Actually I think we postpone the whole idea until the technical details are sorted (or just skip it for HOL). Cody offered to host them on Lore and I think that's the better choice. The conversion to JPG or putting them into screenshots sounds like a pretty 'bended' way to have them on HOL to be honest, so I'd suggest to keep them on Lore for the time being.

It's sounds a really good idea TCD! And it's a really generous gesture from Cody to host the files on Lore!
After all, it's all connected, right? Like EAB and HOL are...
It would be more convenient of course to have the info directly from HOL but for the time being is not possible as you have already stated.
And I agree that it's not quite efficient to put them elsewhere just to accommodate them.

One more thing... I don't know how Lore is connected to HOL so I have to ask this... does every entry on HOL's DB have a correspondent entry on Lore?
If not, then for every image that is uploaded on Lore a bridge should be made to HOL's database for it... am I right?

[TCD]

Every HOL entry has an entry on Lore Of course we'll still try to put them on HOL, but this would allow you and us to carry on for now and later 'bulk update' HOL when it's ready I'll get back to you after the weekend about that idea.

Edit: You can easly check the HOL <-> Lore availability.
http://www.abime.net/games/view/game/id/2349
Just enter any ID from HOL at the end and have a look.

[scifi]

Originally Posted by DH

@s2325

I don't know if you realize this, but scifi is more than capable of removing the backgrounds with ease using Photoshop I doubt he would want to take that control out of his hands either and leave it in the hands of an automated website, and nor would I myself.

Besides, I would imagine that would be only capable of removing backgrounds from the most simplest of images and would fail miserably when presented with the more complex stuff that scifi will undoubtedly be doing later.

You're more than right with that observation DH... as they state on their website, the program can handle better "images with sharp boundaries between contrasting foreground and background". But in such cases, that can be easily done with CS too... and as you correctly said I will have the full control of the outcome. Now, when the boundaries are blurred or not so sharp then the automated program will have a messed up result.
Sometimes, you need to put the "artistic final touch" to the outcome to make it even better.

But thank you so much s2325 for pointing out this site!

[scifi]

Originally Posted by TCD

Every HOL entry has an entry on Lore Of course we'll still try to put them on HOL, but this would allow you and us to carry on for now and later 'bulk update' HOL when it's ready I'll get back to you after the weekend about that idea.

Edit: You can easly check the HOL <-> Lore availability.
http://www.abime.net/games/view/game/id/2349
Just enter any ID from HOL at the end and have a look.

Uhh great!! Thanks for the speed reply!
I wouldn't stop the project anyway TCD... it gives pleasure to me and I also enjoy sharing it with every Amiga enthusiast too.
I'll wait for your news when you are ready to do so... meanwhile, it's time for me to proceed with titles starting with A...

[scifi]

I need your opinion with the following and how I should handle titles similar to this one... I attach two files... the first one is the title with the player as a part of the title and the second one only the letters of the title where c & e is reconstructed... in my humble opinion I like both!

[prowler]

I vote for the first (including the player), but obviously that's just my preference.

[DH]

1st one with the players here too, as if that's what it originally was, why reconstruct something that was never there

Always best to try and keep them as original as possible scifi

[scifi]

Originally Posted by prowler

I vote for the first (including the player), but obviously that's just my preference.

Yes, I feel that it's more accurate too... the player is not a part of the title too, it's not a different component.... apart from the fact that it is more compelling...

@DH

That's what I will do...

[TCD]

I third the 'keep it real' sentiment If a graphical element is part of the title leave it there

[scifi]

This title was so rewarding... that's why I do what I do right now!
Challenging... I had to go pixel by pixel to adjust the shadows and everything... so many foreign elements were intertwined and I had to discard them and clean them thoroughly... and that's one of the titles that an automated program cannot handle for sure...