blurry jpgs after uploading them

[candyliquor35m]

I'm trying to figure out why my jpgs get blurry after I upload them to sites like here or craigslist.

[candyliquor35m]

that one didn't get blurry so maybe it's only when I resize them using a photo editor.

[DarqueKnight]

In order to efficiently manage server space, some sites will compress and resize an image file after it is uploaded. To verify if your file has been compressed and by how much, download your image from the website and compare the file size to your original uploaded image.

In the case of my System Showcase pictures, the images I uploaded are very sharp and have file sizes in the range of 300 kB to 400 kB with 1024 x 768 pixel resolution. When I download the same images from the Polk website, the images are slightly soft and have file sizes are in the range of 45 kB to 55 kB with 800 x 600 pixel resolution. Polk's website is compressing my uploaded image files until they contain only 17% to 20% of the original information content. This is considered acceptable quality for a website image.

You may wonder why the Polk System Showcase allows an uploaded file size of 2 MB when they are going to resize it and compress it down to less than 100 kB. The more information in the original image, the better it will look after being compressed.

It appears that image files attached to threads are not resized and compressed.

[candyliquor35m]

So my respectful resizing everything to 58k in this pic is then getting reduced to 29k. I wish they would leave anything under 100k or some cutoff alone but that would involve additional programming.

[DarqueKnight]

Ummm....no. When I downloaded the pic it had a file size of 59,388 bytes:

It appears that image files attached to threads are not resized and compressed.

[candyliquor35m]

aha my express dialup software is reducing it on download. let me upload another one with the express turned off.

Edit: ain't that the ____. it's my express dial-up software monkeying with the files.