Photos are important part of Overgrow. When it comes to plants and nature old saying that “a picture is worth a thousand of words” cannot be more true. Photos are our biggest joy but also a burden to our server. I’d like everyone to be aware that server space is limited resource and introduce some basic practices to follow:
Help us conserve the server storage!
tl;dr
Because our server is doing automatic compression, your effort to conserve our storage should be focused on limiting a number of photos you are uploading.
1. Use proper file format: JPG/JPEG
JPEG is the best format for photos. It has the right compression and allows to keep high picture quality and small file size. Please read here to learn more about computer graphic formats.
2. Think twice before uploading each photo
Prefer quality over quantity. There is no need to shoot a plant from all angles. If you are doing diary update, just post one or two overview photos capturing whole grow and few details of selected plants that are worth sharing. Batch of 5-10 photos can easily do the trick for weekly or bi-weekly update.
Wait with updates until some changes can be observed on the plants. Daily updates are too much.
If you just started, show us the room and its equipment instead of details of each pot or seedling. Shooting every single pot with germinating seed is redundant, because every pot with soil looks the same.
Note: There are always exceptions: technically complex tutorials that need detailed photo documentation, etc.
3. What about size and compression?
Currently we support upload of photos up to 10 MB (megabytes) and no more than 13 Mpx (megapixels). That means 99% of photos from digital SLRs and mobile phones should easily go through.
Compression is done automatically by the server at a time of upload, so if you don’t want to reduce file size on your own as a part of photo post-processing (which is recommended practice), you don’t need to care about it.
When photo is 6 months old, we automatically reduce the pixel size again. Limit is 2 Megapixels (HD quality = 1920 x 1080px) which is enough for archival purposes.
4. What about photo metadata?
Photos is JPG format are accompanied with EXIF data that include e.g. camera type and camera settings. We strip all metadata from photos before publishing them so they can’t be used for identification.
5. Always include photo description
Community is about sharing knowledge. This knowledge is only searchable when in form of text. We cannot search for images. If you don’t include proper photo description (e.g. strain name “White Widow”) nobody will find your photo using the search.
6. Private galleries are forbidden
Storage space is available for free only for public topics and galleries. We can’t offer valuable storage space for free just to serve to few individuals as their personal file hosting. That means creating private galleries in PMs is forbidden with the only exception of #private-lounge (which is semi-public).
(Private galleries are available to our Supporters)
Quick tips
- Photos are formatted best when each image tag is on the separate line and if you include empty lines between the photos. This way photos will have proper spacing and will be easier to browse.
- Each textual description should be put on separated line too (again accompanied by empty lines above and below). This will make sure that text is properly formatted and readable.
- If you want to show details of the photo (e.g. some pests, trichomes or leaf damage) and lack proper close-up lens or magnifying glass, you should learn how to crop photos. This way after downsizing photo resolution, there will still be enough details visible.
Still struggling how to upload photos? Please read this topic: How to upload photos to Overgrow 📸
