Delete a Message
The best way to submit pictures is to directly add them yourself on the site. You just need to register on the site and you are ready.
You can find few guidelines here below, and basic explanation on that page:
http://forum.imcdb.org/forum_topic-5646-36296.html
This feature is new, so it is not yet well documented. I'll improve that later.
Other solution is to create a topic on this "contributions" section of the forum, with the movie title as topic title.
For that, use the "new topic" link on the topic list, or click the following link: http://forum.imcdb.org/forum_newtopic-8.html
If possible, it is easier for us if you include the IMCDb link of the movie, or the IMDB link if the movie is not yet on IMCDb.
To submit pictures on the forum, use a picture hosting site like www.imageshack.us to upload your pictures, then paste in your message the link called "thumbnail for forums (1)" to make a miniature image appear in your topic.
If you do not want to register on the site or on the forum, you can simply send the files by e-mail.
Create a zip file containing your pictures and send it to " contrib @ imcdb.org "
It may take some time before e-mail or forum contributions are processed, especially when lots are already waiting.
About pictures compression/encoding:
Recommended format is JPEG.
If possible, remove black borders and check that aspect ratio is correct (i.e. that height & width are correct so that wheels are round for a car seen from the side).
Ratio (width/height) usually have the following values:
1.33 = standard 4:3 picture (TV-show, very old movies, series, ...)
1.66 = some more recent series
1.85 = lots of widescreen movies
2.35 = most recent movies that are made for an even larger screen.
Usually on widescreen DVD the picture is stored with a 16/9 ratio: that gives 1.77, which correspond to the picture ratio with the black borders. So an alternative system is to resize to 1.77 ratio and cut the borders after that.
In the case that the picture is ready to use (i.e. no borders & correct ratio) here are the limitations of the site: 720 pixels wide for DVD quality, 640 pixels wide (or below) for lower quality pictures; HD pictures can go up to 960 pixels wide and 498 pixels in height.
Size for pictures is limited too, usually a widescreen DVD-quality picture should be around 40-50 KB.
Smaller files are around 30-40 KB, and can fall around 15 KB for small VideoCD-size pictures.
In most of the image programs, this correspond to 85% quality setting (or 15% compression, depending on the program used).
See http://forum.imcdb.org/forum_topic-4522-New_picture_upload_rules__automatic_resize.html for more details about picture sizes.
If your pictures do not have the right width/height ratio or still have the black borders and that you can't correct that, then it is better to not compress it too much, so there will not be too much quality loose when we process it.
If you do not have a program to resize/compress pictures, I recommend to get XnView.
If you are unsure of which setting to use and if your pictures are correct, do not hesitate to post a test pic so we can give you info for the next ones.
*******************************************************************
Small XnView tutorial made previously on another topic
You can find few guidelines here below, and basic explanation on that page:
http://forum.imcdb.org/forum_topic-5646-36296.html
This feature is new, so it is not yet well documented. I'll improve that later.
Other solution is to create a topic on this "contributions" section of the forum, with the movie title as topic title.
For that, use the "new topic" link on the topic list, or click the following link: http://forum.imcdb.org/forum_newtopic-8.html
If possible, it is easier for us if you include the IMCDb link of the movie, or the IMDB link if the movie is not yet on IMCDb.
To submit pictures on the forum, use a picture hosting site like www.imageshack.us to upload your pictures, then paste in your message the link called "thumbnail for forums (1)" to make a miniature image appear in your topic.
If you do not want to register on the site or on the forum, you can simply send the files by e-mail.
Create a zip file containing your pictures and send it to " contrib @ imcdb.org "
It may take some time before e-mail or forum contributions are processed, especially when lots are already waiting.
About pictures compression/encoding:
Recommended format is JPEG.
If possible, remove black borders and check that aspect ratio is correct (i.e. that height & width are correct so that wheels are round for a car seen from the side).
Ratio (width/height) usually have the following values:
1.33 = standard 4:3 picture (TV-show, very old movies, series, ...)
1.66 = some more recent series
1.85 = lots of widescreen movies
2.35 = most recent movies that are made for an even larger screen.
Usually on widescreen DVD the picture is stored with a 16/9 ratio: that gives 1.77, which correspond to the picture ratio with the black borders. So an alternative system is to resize to 1.77 ratio and cut the borders after that.
In the case that the picture is ready to use (i.e. no borders & correct ratio) here are the limitations of the site: 720 pixels wide for DVD quality, 640 pixels wide (or below) for lower quality pictures; HD pictures can go up to 960 pixels wide and 498 pixels in height.
Size for pictures is limited too, usually a widescreen DVD-quality picture should be around 40-50 KB.
Smaller files are around 30-40 KB, and can fall around 15 KB for small VideoCD-size pictures.
In most of the image programs, this correspond to 85% quality setting (or 15% compression, depending on the program used).
See http://forum.imcdb.org/forum_topic-4522-New_picture_upload_rules__automatic_resize.html for more details about picture sizes.
If your pictures do not have the right width/height ratio or still have the black borders and that you can't correct that, then it is better to not compress it too much, so there will not be too much quality loose when we process it.
If you do not have a program to resize/compress pictures, I recommend to get XnView.
If you are unsure of which setting to use and if your pictures are correct, do not hesitate to post a test pic so we can give you info for the next ones.
*******************************************************************
Small XnView tutorial made previously on another topic
To resize and compress pictures, use xnview for example.
Launch the program, browse to the folder in which are your files, select all files, go to "Tools" menu -> "Batch processing".
It should then list in that window all the files that you selected at the step before.
Possibly adjust the output directory (here I have set same as input, "e:\01" which is my temp folder), select JPEG as format, click "options" on the right
If your pictures are already in JPEG format, I recommend to select another directory as output, so you can make few tries (else your original images will be overwritten, and if you put a wrong setting they are lost)
adjust the slider to have quality set at 80 instead of default (95?), enable the "progressive" option (makes a little smaller files), then "ok".
Back in the "batch processing" window, now open the "transformations" tab/page.
If your pictures have back borders you'll have to use the "crop" action - tell me if you need info about that, I can add these
To resize the pics if they are bigger than 720 pixels wide (which is the case with PowerDVD if I am right), select the "resize" action and click "add" :
Enter 720 in the "width" field.
If the ratio is already good (i.e. pictures are not too flat or too high) you do not have to fill the "height" field, and just keep the "keep ratio" option.
Else you have to uncheck that option and enter the right height depending on the movie.
Height = Width / ratio, with ratio being one of the following in most of the cases:
1.25 (some very old stuff)
1.33 (fullscreen tv)
1.66 (some tv series)
1.77 (widescreen 16:9 tv, usually matches images with black border, not common on pictures where black borders are already removed)
1.85 (movies)
2.35 (movies)
Click "go" and you should get your images converted
Uncheck the "close..." option just above the "go" button if you want to make few tries without re-entering settings each time.
Launch the program, browse to the folder in which are your files, select all files, go to "Tools" menu -> "Batch processing".
It should then list in that window all the files that you selected at the step before.
Possibly adjust the output directory (here I have set same as input, "e:\01" which is my temp folder), select JPEG as format, click "options" on the right
If your pictures are already in JPEG format, I recommend to select another directory as output, so you can make few tries (else your original images will be overwritten, and if you put a wrong setting they are lost)
adjust the slider to have quality set at 80 instead of default (95?), enable the "progressive" option (makes a little smaller files), then "ok".
Back in the "batch processing" window, now open the "transformations" tab/page.
If your pictures have back borders you'll have to use the "crop" action - tell me if you need info about that, I can add these
To resize the pics if they are bigger than 720 pixels wide (which is the case with PowerDVD if I am right), select the "resize" action and click "add" :
Enter 720 in the "width" field.
If the ratio is already good (i.e. pictures are not too flat or too high) you do not have to fill the "height" field, and just keep the "keep ratio" option.
Else you have to uncheck that option and enter the right height depending on the movie.
Height = Width / ratio, with ratio being one of the following in most of the cases:
1.25 (some very old stuff)
1.33 (fullscreen tv)
1.66 (some tv series)
1.77 (widescreen 16:9 tv, usually matches images with black border, not common on pictures where black borders are already removed)
1.85 (movies)
2.35 (movies)
Click "go" and you should get your images converted
Uncheck the "close..." option just above the "go" button if you want to make few tries without re-entering settings each time.