Nasty JPEG artifacts at Pbase.com

[Olegis]

I'm seeing this strange phenomenon - when I view my photographs which are stored at Pbase.com on my PC monitor at home, I see very nasty JPEG compression artifacts, especially in areas with great deals of contrast. These very same photographs, when viewed on a PC monitor at my work, doesn't exibit those artifacts. It's very strange ... My PC at home is based on Windows XP professional and the one at my work runs on Windows 2000 professional, but I doubt that the difference between these two operating systems can introduce such a strange behavior. I use Mozilla Firefox 1.0 both at home and work.

Some pictures that I see the artifacts on are :

http://www.pbase.com/olegis/image/33200279 (over the edges of the flower)
http://www.pbase.com/olegis/image/33200277 (same)
http://www.pbase.com/olegis/image/39679315 (in the dark clouds)

When I try to view the same pictures with an ACDSee viewer (at home), I don't see the artifacts.

Any ideas ?

[scottbergerphoto]

They look good to me. Are you expecting too much from a downsized web image?
Scott

[Olegis]

Hi Scott.
The problem is that I see the images (the same ones !) with artifacts on my home PC monitor, while my monitor at work shows very clean and smooth images. It's very strange to me, as I especially and very carefully optimize (resize and sharpen) these images for Web display. The most interesting thing is that I do it on my home PC monitor ... :confused:

[steven]

That sounds like a video driver problem.
Check to see if you video card has an updated driver.

[sdommin]

I don't see the artifacts either, but here are some things to check:

- Just below the title of your image, make sure you you've pressed "original", not small, medium, or large for the picture size. PBase can resize your pics 'on the fly', which can result in artifacts.

- This doesn't apply to you, but when you upload to PBase, make sure that "upload processing" is set to no change, rather than recompress originals. That can be a source of artifacts.

- You can also recompress your originals on your edit page, if you need space. Don't do it unless you absolutely have to!

[Scottes]

Are you running your video at 24-bit at home? Even running at 16-bit can make "artifacts" appear.

[sdommin]

One more thing: since you're using Mozilla Firefox, go to Tools-->Options-->Advanced-->Browsing, and make sure the "resize images to fit in browser window" is unchecked.

[Olegis]

Sorry guys - I'm so stupid !
I didn't notice that I was using the "Large" option instead of the "Original" one - and that was what introduced all the atrifacts I was takling about. Because of smaller screen I have at home (17" vs 21" at my work) I was constantly using the "Large" option at home, which was supposed to resize the images to fit the screen. Now I changed it to "Original" and everything looks as it should.

Thanks all (and especially sdommin) !

[maderito]

Oleg -

Great pics!

If I hadn't been looking for the nonexistent JPEG artifacts, I probably wouldn't have noticed the dust bunnies in the clouds of the Tel-Aviv shot. Maybe you should edit the title of this thread. :confused:

[Avalonthas]

Pretty good to me for 72dpi web images.

[Olegis]

Thanks maderito !
I "killed" some of those bunnies in PS, but obviously there were some who escaped the process. Will be more careful next time (already cleaned the sensor ! ;) ).

P.S. BTW, if you want to see those JPEG artifacts, just review the pictures at "Large" setting (it's below the pictures).