newbie image size question

So I have made a few tours and they are way too slow to load.  What have people found to be a good panorama image size?  I'm using tourweaver 3.  My webmaster already took down the tours so I can't link them.  The average spherical image was 2828 x 1414.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

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I usually end up with a 3000x1500 sized image - about 800kb to 1.3MB in size.

Here's a tour example I just did with TW 4 :

www.360digitalpics.com/idx1627536/360D_idx1627536.html

I started with a 8000x4000 sized image and used WP+Pro - a Photoshop plug-in, to resize the image.  You can get this plug-in via Smooth's website here

Hope this helps.

Robert

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Thanks for the input Rob63. 

Anyone else willing to share what image sizes they are using?

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2500x1250

They run 550 to 850 kb
Vince

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You must understand that image "dimension" size and image "weight" size are very different things. If you plan to display fullscreen I wouldn't go below 3000x1500 pixels in dimension size with 4000x2000 better suited. Allowing that people have widescreen monitors these days running 1280x1024 resolution commonly.

A fullscreen image at 4000x2000 will typically run you at 800kb to 1.5mb each if compressed in "weight" correctly.

Programs such as Photoshop's "Save for Web" feature or KissMyImage software do a good job at compressing images so that the weight is minimised.

KissMyImage has a great feature where you can input what is the "allowable" target weight for the compressed image.

As always, some images will compress better than others and it is always a trade off between download speed and display quality. Use your eyes as the best judgment - if it looks bad it's most likely over compressed or the image dimensions are too small for fullscreen display.

Remember, just because you "can" doesn't mean you have too! Some images just shouldn't be shown fullscreen...

Regards, Smooth

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It should be noted too that well lit scene during the taking of pictures would produce smaller weight resulting panos.


thierry

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great info.  Thanks a lot.

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I guess a followup question as well.  What image type has the best bang for the buck as far as compression : quality.  I am thinking about doing 2 copies of each tour.  A lower resolution/more compressed tour for people with slow connection speeds or short attention spans and a better quality version people with fast connections and a little more patience. 

I have been using .jpg, should I consider other types?

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Your final images will need to be .jpg but you should always work in a non lossy format like .bmp, .tif etc until the final saving step because of image degeneration when saving or converting multiple times with a lossy format like .jpg.

Regards, Smooth

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Thanks.  I like that: "lossy format"

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