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ESL forum > Message board > Poor quality of images on some worksheets :(    

Poor quality of images on some worksheets :(



Helen McK
Ireland

Poor quality of images on some worksheets :(
 

Hello again folks, Smile

 

Let me preface what I�m about to say by reiterating what I have said before: I think this site is ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC and it is without question the best thing I have ever discovered on the Internet!! 

 

One little problem that I encounter here, however, is the poor quality of the images on some of the worksheets.  Frequently, I come across great worksheets which I would love to use with my students, but I�m disappointed to see that when photocopied, they just aren�t up to the mark visually.

 

For what it�s worth, here are my recommendations regarding images:

� Don�t try to squeeze too many little pictures into the one page.  As a rule of thumb, I would never include more than 15 in my own worksheets.

� Images with a black outline work very well when photocopied or printed directly from a computer.

� Avoid adding coloured backgrounds to your images which make it more difficult to see the detail of the pictures.  If you must add a coloured background, choose the colour very carefully.

� Try to use good quality graphics always.  When uploading worksheets myself, I choose not to use scanned images as I just don�t feel that the quality is good enough.

� Only use the �Printscreen� feature as a last resort.   Here again, I feel that such images are not very clear and do not photocopy well.

� Before uploading a worksheet, photocopy it to make sure it looks OK when reproduced in this way.

 

I hope that I don�t sound too fussy or prescriptive; this is certainly not my intention.  I really do appreciate the effort of all those who contribute to this site. 

 

Helen

23 Jan 2009      





campbelldavidson
Japan

Hi,
I agree but it is quite hard to keep within the 300kb limit and retain quality. In the future I hope to see this site accomodating 1mb per ws.

C

23 Jan 2009     



mizutamari
United States

I find scanned images and even "print screen" ones to be just fine if you do it correctly.  Personally I find poorly resized or watermarked images to present the most problems.

But as other commenters already said, the main reason the quality suffers is because of the file size limit.  If you have a colorful worksheet full of images, most of the time the image has to be saved as a .jpg file to meet the file size restriction.  For .jpg images the color palette is decreased and the quality suffers heavily compared to .png or .tiff image files.  Unfortunately the site can�t accomodate most worksheets with lots of high quality image files.  And since this site is a free site and it costs a lot of money for space to upload, it�s doubtful that the file size restriction will change much in the near future.

23 Jan 2009     



alien boy
Japan

To my mind (& judging by many wonderfully visual uploads) the size limit (300kb) is not the issue.

The issues are more likely to be:
 
- poor quality original image.
- over complex colours & detail retained in edited/resized images
- less efficient image file types used when resizing images - e.g. �.jpg/.jpeg� palette has scope for many more colours than �.gif� but is a �lossy� compression, so you actually lose data when you make the image smaller. This can adversely effect the quality of a resized image. If an image contains only a few colours then �.gif� is more appropriate as ithas a smaller colour palette but does not lose data when compressed.
- background colours can be too close to the text or image colours, making low resolution copying difficult.
 
It is always possible to ask contributors for their original images if they have them & you want to use the original images.
 
re scanned images - it depends on the scanning resolution & format that the original scan is produced with. I often use scanned images for worksheets, posters, handouts etc. I have no issues with scanned images if they are edited properly before being used in an upload.
 
Cheers,
ab

23 Jan 2009     



anatavner
Israel

I would like to add that I first of all agree that this site is FANTASTIC, and I have become addicted to it !!!!!
The second thing I would like to add that the worksheets are AMAZING !!!!! But - not just the poor quality of the pictures bothers me and sometimes I have to start changing some of them, but also sometimes FONTS. There are fonts that may look great on the screen, but not on a workpage . And don�t fornet - we�re teaching our student a foreign language and unclear fornt may cause them frustration or they might not want do the page.
I find  myself changing fonts because I really want my students to love the WS (and they do) and do them happily and not struggle with them.
So, I�m asking PLEASE PLEASE change fonts but may them readable.
Thank you all for contributing and sharing!!!!!

23 Jan 2009