As of tonight, you should notice a fairly significant speed boost while browsing pictures. Since the introduction of RohJuh.com V4, all scaled pics (the thumbnails as well as the 640X480 resized pics) have been scaled at 100% image quality. This resulted in fairly large image sizes (from a file size standpoint).

After some experimentation, I found that a setting of 80% image quality results in significantly smaller file sizes, but with only a barely noticeable degradation in image quality. Placed side by side in a blind comparison, it is unlikely that any but the most discerning eye would notice a difference. Typical file sizes for the 640X480 resized pics have been reduced on average by 75+%, from ~300-350 KB down to ~70-90 KB. That means that the time it takes to transfer a pic from the RohJuh web server to your computer should be about 4 times faster than before. I’ve tested this with an off-site computer and the difference is substantial. Stepping through pictures is now a much more pleasant experience!

My iMac spent the better part of today rescaling all the pics (over 11,000 so it took a while!). Now, everything’s good to go. Unfortunately, the speed boost does not affect the full-size pics or movies since these are in their original formats and not scaled. The only way the transfer speeds of those will improve is with faster broadband.

Posted by Roger at 10:13 PM.