[ubuntu-art] Re: ubuntu-art Digest, Vol 11, Issue 46

[Kenneth Wimer]

On May 17, 2006, at 1:38 PM, Michiel Sikma wrote:

>
> Op 17-mei-2006, om 12:52 heeft Kenneth Wimer het volgende geschreven:
>
>> The problems I see with this whole thing is this:
>>
>> A pic, when rendered from vector with a decent editor, anti- 
>> aliases differently at different sizes. Every time the thing is  
>> scaled you loose quality (unless you are just really, really  
>> lucky). So, making bigger pics is easy but they are only loosely  
>> related to other versions of the same pic (when it comes to the  
>> anti-aliasing) and therefor not the best determiner as to the  
>> quality of anti-aliasing.
>>
>> That said, I'll still make bigger versions of my pics...but let's  
>> not decide based on the bigger versions, but on the smaller  
>> versions :-)
>>
>> Bye,
>> Ken
>
> As for the losing of quality: when you downscale any raster image,  
> you will lose information. That's true. However, since a downscaled  
> image is smaller than the original, you won't actually SEE that you  
> lose information. You will only see this if you UPscale an image.

True. But, what we are aiming for here is knowing exactly which pic  
has the best anti-aliasing, so any change in the information in the  
images between versions leads us to make a decision based on at least  
partially incorrect or unknown information.

Also, I think that we should separate the cases of pre-scaling the  
pics to the correct aspect ratio and scaling them up as Mark asked in  
another mail. Perhaps this is leading to confusion.

>
> So if you don't have normal-sized versions of your splash screen,  
> then that's okay; just don't post upscaled versions. That's not  
> necessary.

If I understood Mark correctly, he would like a bigger version of the  
pic, in which the anti-aliasing can be seen at a larger size.

I misunderstood this at first and assumed I would have to export  
larger versions but after a coffee and 5min thinking, I realized that  
this is the incorrect way to do this. In order to show the actual  
pics anti-aliasing at a larger size, I simply scaled the entire image  
with the Gimp and set the interpolation to "none". I think that I am  
on the right track here (see the attached pics).

> However, let's NOT necessarily decide on the smaller versions; all  
> my images are normal-sized versions that need to be downscaled  
> before they're used in any binary, and I don't think we should  
> downscale them for the sake of comparison.
>

I think that the artistic merits of the design itself should be  
decided upon as one will view it in real life (not scaled) but the  
technical issues as to how well the thing will actually look when in  
use definitely need to be considered as well. Of course, one oculd  
argue that unless we make screenshot of the thing in action, there is  
no way to know 100% for certain how any pic will look when in use due  
to the scaling unless someone can come up with the scaling algorithm  
and/or a test program to display the usplash on the fly.

> In short: you really should provide normal-sized screens, both for  
> reasons of comparison and for compatibility with future splash  
> screens that might not be affected by squishing (maybe when EFI  
> becomes the new standard, for example...); if you don't have any  
> normal-sized screens, then don't worry about it.
> Michiel

Due to the amount of work involved with redrawing all the pics  
without the pre-scaling for the aspect ratio scaling later, I won't  
unless someone asks specifically for this :-)

Bye,
Ken

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: test7a-b.png
Type: image/png
Size: 2526 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/attachments/20060517/837c73e1/test7a-b-0001.png
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: test8a-b.png
Type: image/png
Size: 2465 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/attachments/20060517/837c73e1/test8a-b-0001.png
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: test6a-b.png
Type: image/png
Size: 2107 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/attachments/20060517/837c73e1/test6a-b-0001.png