Hello, gentlemen and ladies. I’ve been thinking a lot about limiting the size of photos. And I came to the conclusion that we need the opportunity to view full—size originals very much; moreover, this need is constantly increasing over time.
How do I propose to implement this?
The most obvious option is to return the original to the page with the description of the photo, where its dimensions are shown (as the fifth size, the largest). At the same time, the image on the monitoring page can continue to be displayed in the fourth size (the current 2048x2048) if the capacity of the project servers does not allow continuous operation of heavy files. Alternatively, you can make the scaled—down version open with one click on the monitoring page, and the original with a double click, like opening files in Explorer (a more complicated but more beautiful option). Or provide a separate button for this. Or…
In general, respected developers can choose the method themselves, based on the current realities and features of the site’s software. As a user, I can’t know all the details. In what form this function will be implemented is also not important to me. Absolutely any method of introducing originals will be fundamentally better than their complete absence.
As a last resort, if it is not possible to enter this option now for technical or financial reasons, in any case, you should save the originals at least in a “cold” form. So that later, when the situation gets better, you can connect them “at the touch of a button.” Or increase the original photo limit to at least 3072x3072 to better maintain detail.
The main. Why am I confident in the need to implement this feature?
1. From the point of view of science, photography is not just a picture. This is a document. The higher the resolution and detail of an image, and the more it demonstrates the object depicted on it, the greater its value to science. When the image is reduced, the number of noticeable details is lost, and its scientific value decreases; if a decrease of 1.5 times is still acceptable, then a decrease of 2 times or more may become critical. Especially if a rare species is depicted. Or it’s a species that can only be identified by small details.
2. It seems that 2048x2048 is a big size. However, in practice, it is almost never used effectively. Many people upload images as they are, without processing or cropping. To verify this, just open the observation panel right now: such observations can make up up to 80% of the content. And modern smartphones and cameras have powerful cameras with a resolution of up to 50 megapixels or more. This image is compressed 3-4 times when uploaded. And the object itself in the image is often compressed to 400-800 pixels. Details are lost, precise definition becomes difficult or impossible, and scientific value declines. This problem has huge proportions and significantly reduces the percentage of definiteness of observations. Anyone who identifies other people’s photos is constantly confronted with such situations and feels uncomfortable, even if they don’t realize where this discomfort comes from.
3. To a lesser extent, but this applies to high-quality filming too. I can’t crop photos exactly along the borders of the object.: it looks ugly. And my images have a very high resolution, and they often shrink by 2 to 2.5 times when uploaded, which harms the detail. This is especially critical when photographing plants, because they are often determined by the leaves, the structure of flowers, the nature of pubescence and other very small signs.
4. If I understood correctly, then, along with the limited capacity of the project’s own servers, the unavailability of fast Internet is also one of the main reasons for cropping images. It was really relevant 10 years ago. But now we are developing 4G and 5G. We already have a Starlink that covers the entire globe. Similar satellite networks are being designed in Russia, China and the EU. Thus, the problem of slow Internet is losing its relevance very quickly. Just as the cost of storing and processing big data is falling. On the contrary, the problem of “cropped” images is becoming more acute.
5. We have real examples. I know of several wildlife projects where the creators of the site have limited the size of the photos. For example — Diptera.info (600 pixels), Insecta.pro (1080 pixels in height), as well as Plantarium.ru (1300 pixels), which was once an advanced Russian project about plants. Their creators seriously thought that they were creating world-class projects that would be relevant for many decades. But where are these projects now? Nowhere. All of them are almost forgotten. Of course, they have been in decline for many different reasons. But limiting the size of images is one of the key factors of failure in each of the three cases. I don’t want to think that one day this might happen to an Inaturalist (not only because of the photos, there are other weak unrealized places, for example, videos, but until the problem of photos is solved, it makes no sense to even think about more)…
I said.