What is the optimum megapixel dimensions for uploading?

[MTHall720]

I'm having a tough time with choosing megapixel dimensions for uploading directly from my phone. Usually I get the error message of file size too large. What is the largest size I can upload? 800x800? Thanks for any suggestions. This may be a super easy question but I am from a generation where no one ever even saw a computer growing up.

 

[Planterz]

Megapixels don't directly translate to file size. Well, they do, but there's degrees of quality that can change the size of the file without actually changing the dimensions of the image.

A 1920x1080 image (the same as a full-screen FHD television or smartphones before they started getting goofy with the aspect ratios) is 2.07 megapixels. Pretty low quality by today's standards. In fact, the default camera app on your phone might not even give you this option (but there should be 3rd party ones that do).

Even then, because of the question of quality translating to file size, a 1920x1080 (or even smaller) image might still be too large to upload directly to bladeforums. A 2.07MP .jpg can be over 400KB in size, or much less, depending on the quality. You might have to fiddle with the quality settings to something less than "high" or whatever "default" is. Again, the stock camera on your phone might not give the amount of control you require.

One other option is to use the camera of a different app, like facebook. Take a picture with FB's camera, upload it to a gallery (set privacy to "only me"), then download it to your phone. It might be different than mine, but on my phone this gives me a 1920x1080MP image that's about 65KB in size, which will be plenty small to upload to bladeforums. A few extra steps, but the work is done for you. One of the extra steps is that you have to download it after uploading it because the original picture is only stored on facebook, not on your phone.

It's probably easiest to upload your pictures from your phone to a hosting service, such as imgur (they have an app too) then link to them here than it is to edit the pictures on your phone to a size that bladeforums will allow for direct uploading. Especially if you're using the photos for sales/trades, as this way the viewer has access to the full-size images undiluted by quality compression or shrinking them down. Actually, this method is a tedious pain the butt too, especially if you're trying to imbed individual images. But you don't have to worry about the files being too large.

I don't know what bladeforum's image upload size limit is. xenforo software allows the admin to set the limits.

 

[Lesknife]

I’m not sure about the limit for whichever level of membership but mine will usually load 2mb file size, if I go over 3mb I sometimes get an error. You should be able to select the size small, medium or large and it should tell you how many mb each size is. It goes by the file size in mb not megapixels.

 

[MTHall720]

Megapixels don't directly translate to file size. Well, they do, but there's degrees of quality that can change the size of the file without actually changing the dimensions of the image.

A 1920x1080 image (the same as a full-screen FHD television or smartphones before they started getting goofy with the aspect ratios) is 2.07 megapixels. Pretty low quality by today's standards. In fact, the default camera app on your phone might not even give you this option (but there should be 3rd party ones that do).

Even then, because of the question of quality translating to file size, a 1920x1080 (or even smaller) image might still be too large to upload directly to bladeforums. A 2.07MP .jpg can be over 400KB in size, or much less, depending on the quality. You might have to fiddle with the quality settings to something less than "high" or whatever "default" is. Again, the stock camera on your phone might not give the amount of control you require.

One other option is to use the camera of a different app, like facebook. Take a picture with FB's camera, upload it to a gallery (set privacy to "only me"), then download it to your phone. It might be different than mine, but on my phone this gives me a 1920x1080MP image that's about 65KB in size, which will be plenty small to upload to bladeforums. A few extra steps, but the work is done for you. One of the extra steps is that you have to download it after uploading it because the original picture is only stored on facebook, not on your phone.

It's probably easiest to upload your pictures from your phone to a hosting service, such as imgur (they have an app too) then link to them here than it is to edit the pictures on your phone to a size that bladeforums will allow for direct uploading. Especially if you're using the photos for sales/trades, as this way the viewer has access to the full-size images undiluted by quality compression or shrinking them down. Actually, this method is a tedious pain the butt too, especially if you're trying to imbed individual images. But you don't have to worry about the files being too large.

I don't know what bladeforum's image upload size limit is. xenforo software allows the admin to set the limits.

Thanks so much. I appreciate the excellent details of the answer.