Profile Picture

[RedQueen23]

Dear Jim, please won't you fix it for me to make my profile picture work? I keep trying to add a picture, from my computer and from the internet, but nothing seems to work. I know it's the right file type, but I don't know the size requirements. Maybe that's the problem? I'm really not sure. Thanks in advance!

[Undead Medic]

I suspect that the file size or dimensions is probably the problem.

 

Can you post a link to the image you are trying to use?

[RedQueen23]

Here's the link: http://fc05.devianta...exz-d4ruy7z.jpg

It's a lovely picture of Irene Adler (by alicexz on deviantArt.com) which I absolutely adore! Thanks for your help, by the way.

[Undead Medic]

Yep, as I suspected the image was far too large for the uploader. I have cropped it to a 100 x 100px png image and uploaded it to your profile. Let me know if it looks okay.

 

As a rule of thumb I usually crop avatars to no larger than 150x150px before uploading them (Many photo hosting websites have free, easy to use tools for this) as I find it a lot easier than trying to crop with uploaders.

[RedQueen23]

That's perfect, thanks so much. I wasn't sure if it was one of those things where you could upload it and then crop it, or something like that. Thanks again!

[Undead Medic]

The uploader will allow you to crop your picture but it only handles fairly small files. The file you were trying to upload was 695 x 900 at 365k filesize, which is too big.

[Banshee]

Of course, it would be helpful if the uploader explained things like that when it fails... but it wouldn't be software if it weren't annoying when it fails! (I'm a software developer, I'm allowed to badmouth software!)

[Carol the Dabbler]

I finally uploaded an avatar, and noticed the following:

 

The original file was 312 x 234 (about 27K). The upload automatically reduced it to 100 x 100 (about 5K), partially by reducing the resolution and partially by cropped a bit off the left and right sides. It did a fairly good job of preserving the original appearance.

 

There's also an option for cropping the image yourself -- which should be useful if the autocrop removes your favorite part of the picture -- but I didn't bother with it.