And people still use Kodak why?

[Kelly Grannell]

Kodak is compressing pics to save space
Posted Mar 29th 2006 6:45PM by Marc Perton
Filed under: Digital Cameras
Source: Engadget

When you upload your pics to a photo sharing site, you're usually warned in advance if the site compresses the pics, right? Well, not if you used Kodak's online gallery, according to one former employee who is suing the photo giant. According to Maya Raber, Kodak's former director of engineering, the company "irreversibly damaged" customers' pics, rather than just optimizing them as claimed. According to Raber, Kodak rationalized the practice by saying that customers "wouldn't understand, anyway." Raber says that Kodak put the squeeze on pics as part of a cost-saving plan, and that she was fired after complaining about it.

 

[Mickee]

Kelly What do you suggest for online storage?
Or other options.

 

[ducklite]

Web hosting space is so inexpensive these days, and WYSIWYG web design programs are a dime a dozen, just build your own site to share with friends and family, and save all your photo's to a portable hard drive for long term storage.

Anne

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I just find it disgusting when the customers are not being told that their files will be downrezzed ahead of time.

I personally use photobucket, and it does inform the customer for the freebie account your image will be downrezzed at the user's own setting (128 kb, 256 kb, 512kb) or for paying customer, not downrezzed at all. I heard Pbase is also very good.

 

[grimgrinnin]

I have a pBase account but I'm cancelling it after this year. I moved to SmugMug. pBase had way to much downtime and was totally unreliable.

I love smugmug because it's unlimited - You can have as many pictures you want (up to 8 megs per picture). You can share your originals, and people can purchase prints. It's like $30 a year. It's also great as an 'off-site' storage location to back-up those precious memories



grim

 

[AZ JazzyJ]

If someone is using an online service as a repository for their original photos they probably should rethink that practice. The resolution density between online and print media is orders of magnitude different and to a point I agree with Kodak. Why leave an image at 300 or 600 dpi when most monitors and web browsers can only manage 72 dpi? In answer to Kelly's question, I think there are several reasons to use Kodak. They have a long history of quality products such as their film and papers. They have brand recognition and make very usable cameras for consumers wanting to document their lives and experiences either digitally or via traditional film. Their developing chemicals are also very good if you are so inclined to work in traditional methods. Because they may reduce the image quality for an online gallery is no reason to completely turn away from an overall good company. I do not know all of the details surrounding this story but at first glance I see this as a disgruntled employee seeking revenge for what they feel was invalid grounds for dismissal.


Jeff

 

[Anewman]

I have been using Costco for printing(not sharing) pretty much from the day they started taking uploads. I never noticed that there was an option "fast upload", and it was always selected by default. Well that whole time I was not uploading the images in full resolution, they were being downsized and compressed.

I still use costco for personal prints, and at least they give you a choice. I would never use a printer that does not.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

In answer to Kelly's question, I think there are several reasons to use Kodak. They have a long history of quality products such as their film and papers.

Well, that's the thing. They have long HISTORY of quality products and that's about all.

I've posted before about two prints from the same file one using Kodak photo paper and the other using Canon photo paper. I've used the paper-printer profile provided by Kodak for my colour calibrated printer. The outcome is horrendous. I actually compared the skin tone of the individual I took the picture of between Kodak paper vs Canon paper. Canon is very close to the original, Kodak is all red (looking like the person got a severe sunburn). The same case when I go to my pro photofinisher, they use both Kodak and Fuji paper. When I print the same file using Kodak and Fuji papers, I always see that the Kodak paper yields more saturated colours. Maybe that's what people like, but it's far from natural looking.

Their point and shoot cameras are also very noisy with regards to higher ISO. What makes it worse is that even at ISO100, even on a calibrated screen at 800x600 resolution you can see the ISO noise as bad as ISO200 on a Nikon/Canon/Pentax/Fuji cameras.

I do have to agree, however, Kodak menu system is the more intuitive, easier to use. But as far as quality goes, they are hit and miss with more of the latter.

I started with Kodak, tried several times to go back to Kodak (even used their dSLR), but my personal experiences with Kodak were so atrocious I can't recommend it to anyone.

 

[grimgrinnin]

If someone is using an online service as a repository for their original photos they probably should rethink that practice. The resolution density between online and print media is orders of magnitude different and to a point I agree with Kodak.

I don't understand. I can store copies of my ORIGINAL files at smugmug. If my house burns down and takes my hard drive, DVD backups, and prints with it, I still have all of my originals. What in the world does 'resolution density' have to do with backing originals up?

grim

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I think most readers missed the point.

I have no problem in resizing of the image.

HOWEVER (here comes the big but), Kodak never mention this fact to their customer (or if they are, not in a clear cut manner because I personally can't find it) so their customers are under the impression that once they store their images online, they no longer need to store their original higher-res files.

 

[boBQuincy]

I can't see storing your only copy of the image online, with someone who may not keep them secure, may go bankrupt or be bought in a merger, and has no liability whatsoever if they lose your images. Their only concern is to make a profit from storing your images and when that is in jeopardy, so are your images.

Store them yourself, on at least three different media, in different locations.

I agree that Kodak (and others) should be clear that they are resizing the images to save space but the online area should be used for sharing screen size copies, not for your priceless originals.

Remember, no one cares more about your photos than you do, don't trust some online business with your memories!


boB

boB

 

[fitzperry]

I can't see storing your only copy of the image online, with someone who may not keep them secure, may go bankrupt or be bought in a merger, and has no liability whatsoever if they lose your images. Their only concern is to make a profit from storing your images and when that is in jeopardy, so are your images.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I would also figure that the vast majority of people who would really care about the downsizing also know better than to rely on Kodak Gallery or another online service as their only storage method.

 

[AZ JazzyJ]

I don't understand. I can store copies of my ORIGINAL files at smugmug. If my house burns down and takes my hard drive, DVD backups, and prints with it, I still have all of my originals. What in the world does 'resolution density' have to do with backing originals up?

I think boB summed up the first part of your question quite well. Only you care about your originals. To an online service your pictures are just taking up space. Space that they are trying to sell to as many people as they can. So if they can minimize the file sizes by reducing resolution density, that means they have more capacity to sell to others. If they keep your 10 megapixel file uncompressed, that means they run out of hard disk storage sooner and have to buy more. If they compress your images they get more images per gigabyte increasing their profit margin. If you were in their shoes what would you do? I'd hack the image files to whatever I thought the minimum would be before too many people started screaming so that I could pack more users and pictures on the servers.

I think it is great that you want to store your images off-site to protect against disaster. I would save your files to CD or DVD and send them to a friend, put them in your drawer at work, keep them in a safe deposit box, or find some other way to do it rather than relying on an on-site system do it for you.

Jeff

 

[ducklite]

I save my original files to DVD and store in my fire safe at my house in FL. I also back them up onto a portable hard drive which is stored in NJ. And of course I've got some of the better photo's on my web site.

Anne

 

[Kelly Grannell]

If they compress your images they get more images per gigabyte increasing their profit margin. If you were in their shoes what would you do? I'd hack the image files to whatever I thought the minimum would be before too many people started screaming so that I could pack more users and pictures on the servers.

Again, the point got lost. Hacking it to itty bitty pieces is not an issue here. Doing so without telling the customer is disgusting.

 

[AZ JazzyJ]

Kelly,

I completely understand your point and it was not lost. I get that you don't like it that the customer was not told that their files were being compressed and compromised. I get that you think Kodak is wrong and should be publicly flogged until they fire the person who made the decision and make restitution to the users whose pictures were modified. I totally understand that you have an issue with sites not telling you when they have changed your files in anyway. I just don't necessarily agree that it's a bad thing that the consumer wasn't notified by Kodak. If Kodak's business model is to provide online viewing of photos that can be purchased by friends and loved ones in small sizes such as 3x5 then they probably feel that they still have the appropriate resolution to provide a decent print (notice I said decent and not original or perfect). If that's their business model and they are willing to handle the occasional unhappy customer then I'm totally cool with that. If they were proposing to be a professional lab selling fine art prints at 24x36 size that may be a different story but it doesn't appear to me that is the clientele they are targeting. The Internet is a free market and the consumer is able to chose with whom they deal with. If Kodak finds that they are losing customers in the demographic they are marketing to due to poor quality I am sure they will modify their settings or their policy. For the vast majority of people taking occasional photos and sharing them on line and printing a few Kodak's model works and most of those types of users either don't really care about compression or if it were explained to them it may seem like techno-jargon and be meaningless. Kodak modifying an original picture either through cropping or reducing resolution without telling you obviously would drive you away from using their service. To my 70 year-old wife's mother she doesn't care and would be better off not knowing. She's happy with the quality on the screen and on the 4x6 prints she has done and even after compression they look as good or better than the instamatic camera she was using before digital. You are on one end of the spectrum when it comes to your printing and storage demands, she is on the other. Compressing without your knowledge is a huge concern and a problem for you. To her it is just making things easy for her to quickly send a picture and write an email telling us that she took some pictures of the flowers in her backyard or of snow falling on her driveway. Oh and for the record, I oppose public flogging. You may flog in your own home and that is your business but I just don't think it's right to flog in front of others.

Jeff

 

[Laur*Tink*85]

Lolll

 

[Kelly Grannell]

but flogging is fun (in Homer's whining voice)