Merricksdad's Free Stock Images

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

I really didn't mind the delay, as I was certainly trying to get some actual compression. Just very surprised that there wasn't any. So I started checking out the jpeg compression my camera uses, and it takes a 30.0 meg 3 channel bitmap and compresses it to 4.62 megs. I guess there simply isn't any more air to squeeze out once it gets to the 7z libraries, which I guess says something good for this particular jpeg algorithm '>

 

I have no idea how many, if any, will actually use these stock photos, especially from their intended location, but I do hope people might use some for games in addition to NWN, which is the only reason I was leaving my processed textures larger.


I suppose for the purposes of NWN, shrinking the textures substantially and changing the image compression values would not affect the final texture for most people. But for me, that seems to defeat the purpose of having a very high resolution image to take various texture swatches from.

 

I think my main goal in posting them on the vault is to get rid of the originals, but have them stored somewhere in their original form. Maybe my reason for doing that (keeping them full sized) makes this more personal than community-based, and I should instead reduce them before sharing, and then put the originals on an external drive.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Also you might like to try experimenting with the degree of loss that is acceptable. The more loss you are prepared to accept, the smaller the jpg as a general rule. Alternatively you could try converting them to png which is both lossless and uses a compression algorithm on the image. Finally if you want to (to a lesser or greater degree) put a hidden watermark into your images check out steganography. This would be to try to stop people using your images for commercial gain without overly degrading the images.

 

TR

 

I'd probably only do that to images I thought were of my highest quality finished product still within the realm of photography, instead of stuff I intend people to hack to bits and create something new from. I never put my best stuff online. That kind of stuff is for me and my family alone. Something to put on the wall and visitors can view it. But these, I think I can probably just go with the most basic copyright and attached license and never bother to go after anybody that does take it to a level of for-profit theft. Actually, that reminds me, I was going to ship a bunch of these specific ones off to wikipedia to upgrade their very bad per-species details.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

well crap, I accidentally started moving and packaging images I had not yet processed for my own texture libraries yet. Now I need to undo and segregate what has not yet been cropped and structured from what has. Hoping sorting by date or index number will help me find where I left off.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               

I recommend trying out ACDSee  (from the makers of Canvas)

 

 

(It's longtime been my favorite image manager, tga converter, file renamer, and it has a kick-ass rock-and-roll name, so win+win+win+win!)

 

Free Trials @ http://www.acdsee.com/en/free-trials

 

(ATM Basic Retails ~40$, w/ Full Editor ~60$, Professional Edition ~75$)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               

I recommend trying out ACDSee  (from the makers of Canvas)

 

<snipped image>

 

(It's longtime been my favorite image manager, tga converter, file renamer, and it has a kick-ass rock-and-roll name, so win+win+win+win!)

 

Free Trials @ http://www.acdsee.com/en/free-trials

 

(ATM Basic Retails ~40$, w/ Full Editor ~60$, Professional Edition ~75$)

 

I have used ACDSee since it's first release.  I had originally purchased a copy back during early days when win98 was the NEW OS and folks were still using win95., I lost the license when a computer crapped out - one of many over the years.  So, I no longer have a license for it, but I do occasionally re-download the demo and use it for around 30 days or whatever their current demo license is...

 

Another highly recommended image managing and editing utility is "Snagit" by Techsmith.  I most especially love it's image capture and editing utilities as those are what I have used to create the call-outs, textual references, arrow pointers etc, in the various tutorials I have created over the years.  The screen capture utilities are the best I have ever found as it allows you to capture by region, window, menu, roll-out etc, thus allowing you to capture details of a UI like inside 3dsmax to make a tutorial much more meaningful.

 

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

<something odd - I posted the following earlier and it just disappeared!>

 

I use and recommend XnView. It is totally free and (unlike other viewers such as irfanview) the image browser is integrated into the main program.

 

TR