Eventually forum members fill up there allotted space in their file manager with oversized pictures.

It would seem that anything over 500kb gets rejected (understandably) and anything over 750 dpi will get downsized for display on the forums, so picture in excess of this is just wasted space.

The solution that we have been doing is zipping up all of their pictures and downloading the zip file. Deleting all of their files.

We then use a resizing tool and resize all their pictures down to 720 DPI, zip it back up, upload and expand the files into their folder. we then delete the zip file as it takes space.

For some reason this time most of the pictures are shown as broken.

In inspecting the properties of the broken files it shows a width of the original size photo. (over 720 DPI)

Finding all of the posts and replacing the pictures can be quite the time consuming task.

Is there some different way this should be handled?

I think you may mean 72 DPI which is what you usually use for the web.

If your the server hosting your forum has Persits AspJPEG installed you can configure your forum 'Upload Settings' in the forum admin to resize images as they are uploaded to your forum by setting the maximum image width and height. 

Bruce, I should have wrote PPI or pixels.

I believe we are using Web Wiz as our server. Upload settings :Persits AspUpload 3.0 or above.

Image types  jpg;jpeg;gif;png

Maximum image size 500kb

Maximum image width 1000 pixels

Maximum image height 1500 pixels

I have uploaded a 1000 pixels wide picture followed by a 750 pixels wide picture. The both display the same size. So the forum software is downsizing the photo to a decent viewable size.

When the allotted 40MB of user space is used up I batch resize them to 720 pixels as I mentioned above.

In the latest instance most of the users pictures are displaying as broken.

Last night I deleted the user file in the Web Wiz Hosing Control Panel, Created a new file with the same user identifier. I uploaded the original zip file of photos that I compressed from the hosting panel and expanded to that folder. I am having the same issue where many of these photos do not display.

I do not know if the following is of any help,

Inspecting the pictures from the browser tools it seems the forum software is not recognizing the photos. It shows the photo as wider than the resized picture is.

Thoughts?

Downloading the images and changing the size will likely cause issues as the post will likely have the image dimensions saved as part of the HTML within the post. The images will likely look pixelated and distorted.

From your description this is what is sounds like is happening and without editing each post to set the changed image size there is not anyway to avoid this.

If you wish to save diskspace and have images at 750 x 750 pixels then the best way to achieve this is to set the maximum image width and height in the forum admin area to 750 pixels.

Bruce, Thank you for the quick response. As stated the maximum upload is limited to 500kb, so a photo that large cannot be uploaded. Being that photos are very important to our discussions this allows for about 400 pictures at 720 pixels wide, 300 @ 1000 pixels.

If we set the threshold to low then many cannot downsize from mobile devices and the information may not be shared.

I have compressed about a dozen folder that were full and never had a problem.

If it is the HTML that is the problem, I question why when the originals are restored to to the folder that they still do not display? File name the same, just smaller.

There has to be a way to resize and upload.

Sounds like I may have to edit all of his posts with his pictures.

Maybe the answer is to provide your forum users with a larger amount of available space they have to upload images.

Bruce,

I would like to ask a follow-on question to the topic here so I better understand what the forum software is doing:

So, let's say I have a 4MB per image limit, but a max size of 900x900 pixels. So I upload a big 4MB photo, but it resizes it on the fly to 900x900 (or whatever) and is about 85KB in size. I can see that 85KB image in the user folder, and I know it is there.

I am assuming (and this is my question) that the original 4MB image file does not exist anywhere on the server, and hence is not taking up any storage. It was converted on the fly and only the re-sized 85KB file exists?

Thank you. Just trying to ensure I am being space-conscious.

So in your example the 4MB image after resizing to 85KB only the resized 85KB file is stored on the server.

Hey hi, use a batch image resizing tool to resize all images to 720 DPI before uploading. The resized images maintain their aspect ratio to prevent distortion. Before uploading the resized images, verify their properties to confirm they are within the required specifications.

If the images still appear broken after resizing, check the forum image upload setting and check they support the resized images format and size.