Notes From Nature Talk

New herbarium pics - lower resolution?

  • HelenBennett57 by HelenBennett57

    Hi,

    Are the new herbarium pics at a lower resolution and/or more heavily compressed? They don't seem to blow up so well which makes it harder to figure out some handwriting details (e.g. this one), and I'm finding some uncomfortably faint.

    I'm also concerned that the lower resolution of the images could make them less useful to those looking at the actual plants - could a #scientist comment? For example, when you blow this one up, you get lots of compression artefacts around the flower heads.

    Too late for this batch, but could the photographer for the next batch take note?

    Helen

    Posted

  • md68135 by md68135 scientist

    Helen,
    I will have to take a closer look at this. What we typically do is take the high resolution original image and downsize it some for Notes From Nature. The original takes longer to load and is thought to be larger than what is needed for Notes From Nature.

    I am almost certain that this new batch was downsized the same as the old batch, but I agree that they are not as sharp.

    Posted

  • am.zooni by am.zooni

    Some of the labels in this batch are very clear and sharp. In fact, I haven't noticed that the specimens themselves are fuzzy in the images. There are definitely a higher proportion of difficult and very difficult-to-read labels in this batch, but on most of them the preprinted text and logos is clear. I think the problem is more likely that this batch has more labels where the ink used to write or type the details on some labels has faded deteriorated over time. (Perhaps storage conditions less ideal than for the previous batch.) Also I've seen a number that appear to have been typed using a very worn typewriter ribbon. A good example of this that I was just served to transcribe is Image ANN0004hcg.

    Posted

  • HelenBennett57 by HelenBennett57 in response to md68135's comment.

    Hi MD, that's reassuring - I agree about loading times. Most of the time these are legible, just not as great; maybe the images with compression artefacts happened to turn up early for me. Glad to hear that the high-resolution originals are still there; that was my biggest concern.

    @am.zooni, totally agree about the image faintness. That's continued to happen quite a bit.

    Posted