Increase max image size (from 2048 x 2048 pixels)

Feature Requests
#1

While importing some of my images from iNaturalist to Wikimedia Commons, I noticed that most of the images have been downsampled to 2048 pixels wide (as the “original” size). While I’m sure that iNaturalist doesn’t want to store hundreds of thousands of 20 megapixel photos, 2048 is pretty small, and it’s a shame that we’re losing the original higher resolution versions, especially when they are freely licensed and could be used elsewhere. Even a modest increase to 3000 would make a significant difference when reusing images in print, for example.

#2

While the high res images being available is a great thing…but they sure do hurt people that are rural and/or have limited data allowance to use each month and no options for any other internet service. It really restricts how much you can view and enjoy iNat when the large images loading use up precious data allowance.

6 Likes
#3

I understand the cap is partly to avoid iNat becoming an image hosting service, with the idea that people can link to higher-res versions (e.g. on flickr). I guess there are tradeoffs? A related policy is that iNat supports animated gifs but not video – and encourages links to youtube/vimeo/etc where it could be helpful.

5 Likes
#4

Yes! Rural here with no cable and terribly slow satellite internet available. I’m now doing unlimited data on my phone and using a hotspot but that is restricted down to 600kb/s. I get so frustrated by huge files especially when it is huge because they didn’t crop so I can’t ID from the size that shows up on the observation and have to view full size. Then I’m waiting for ages for the top half of the photo that is just vegetation to load so I can see the subject of the observation. :weary:

6 Likes
#5

I’d love to have higher-res photos on iNat, but IMO the infrastructure and data connection issues supercede the image quality one.

Also, @zygy don’t forget to vote for your own request. :-)

2 Likes
#6

How should this work?

  1. You upload a picture to iNaturalist.
  2. iNaturalist checks if they are freely licensed and if so iNaturalist stores the original file in Wikimedia Commons.
  3. An observation field is updated to store the relation with the original file in Wikimedia Commons.
  4. iNaturalist resizes the original file to 2048 pixels wide and stores it in its own database.
  5. If the observation becomes Research Grade the tags of the file in point 3 are updated with the taxon name.
1 Like