[TUTORIAL] How to reduce your image size to abide by forum rules.

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Feek

Feek

Feek

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This is really irrelevant now because signatures are effectively unlimited

As you may or may not know the forum rules require signature images to be 90KB (Kilobytes) in size or less. Now there are few ways to get what we want and listed below are a few options. Here are the rules in full regarding signatures:

OverclockersUK FAQ said:
A signature may contain one or more images but they must fit within a box with maximum dimensions of 400 x 75 pixels (width x height) and with a maximum (combined) file size of 90k. Images containing mostly very large words or animated .gifs will not be permitted. You may also add 1 consecutive lines of normal or smaller text directly above or underneath the image with no spaces inbetween image and text. If no images are used then up to 4 consecutive lines of normal or smaller text is permitted. Do not pad out your text lines with blanks lines. A line of text is defined as having a maximum length of 400 pixels.
Click to expand...

TinyPNG

"TinyPNG uses smart lossy compression techniques to reduce the file size of your PNG files. By selectively decreasing the number of colours in the image, fewer bytes are required to store the data. The effect is nearly invisible but it makes a very large difference in file size!"

Put simply it is simply to Smush It (see below) but this seems to be a bit more stable and give better results according to some, try it for yourself and see what happens.

Code: 
tinypng.org


Smush-It Provided By Yahoo!

Code: 
http://www.smu****.com/ysmush.it/


The url has been blocked due to a swear word within the name so join Smush & It together ;)

It is a free service provided by Yahoo! and allows you to greatly reduce the size of uploaded images. The image you upload is only stored for a short time allowing you to re-download it ;)

Adobe Photoshop (thanks goes to moogle for explaining how to do this :))

For those of you who have Photoshop then you can do it yourself by doing the following.

1. With Photoshop open and your image loaded press "File" and select "Save for Web & Devices" (the image shows Photoshop CS5).

2VMw1.jpg

2. Now make the needed changes for the image (make yours look like mine):

b5WWW.jpg

3. Now press the "Save" button and choose where to save it and you are done!

Here is a before and after sample of using the Photoshop method:

Before being Photoshopped (91.2KB).

5EOTU.jpg

After being Photoshopped (19.4KB).

sU7AU.jpg

Paint.net (thanks goes to Glaucus for mentioning this)

Another similar option to that of Photoshop is Paint.net which is freely available for download and can be gotten from this link.

Stoner81.
 
Just loaded your 20KB one in Photoshop and chose "Save for Web" with a Quality of 60 (High) and saved it.

I couldn't see a big difference in visual quality, plus it's a sig :P
 
Added some more screen shots and instructions to the first post, I have also added the suggestions made by Glaucus and moogle (with appropriate thanks being given).

Stoner81.
 
Not sure why the rules only allow a height of 75 pixels, most forums (with a limit) and most programs/sig generation/default sig sizes are 80px?! :(
 
I'm try to use imgur to resize an image that is 2048x1365, however when I change the width too 400 the height goes to 267. I untick lock proportions and set it to 400x75 but the image looks very squished. Is there anyway to maintain the aspect ratio but not looks squished?
 
WGP Images said:
Can someone verify whether a signature can contain a Hyperlink to a website .... i understand the size rules, and can only apologise for the over site .:)
Click to expand...

My initial thought would be no but since nothing is in the signature rules about it I can't say for certain one way or the other, one of the higher ups should be able to help on that though :)

Stoner81.
 
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