Do you think this is necessary....?

fadingaway1986 · Oct 19, 2005

A couple of weeks ago I had a customer complain because our photo teller machines wouldn't read his digital photos...

he said they were in jpeg...

And eventually he asked if it maybe had something to do with the size...

he said they were really big files, which prompted me to ask how big did he consider big (me thinking 2-3MB)...

He said, most are around 200MB.

I asked if maybe he could shrink the photos so that they were actually a 4x6 on the disk - to which he answered, he had already done that, and they were 4x6 on the disk..

He said he would not compress them as they were for uni and he didn't want to lose any quality...

Do you think this is a bit over the top - and how the HELL do you get a 200MB file at 4x6 size?

DocFrankenstein · Oct 19, 2005

He's nuts and doesn't know what he's doing.

fadingaway1986 · Oct 19, 2005

glad you think so... he seemed a bit of a know-it-all (which at my work generally means they are morons who just want to look smart)

I still dunno how he gets a 200MB file out of it... With my 6MP files - I would be lucky to get a 10MB file saved on the highest quality...

Saved to a 4x6 would equal something like a 2MP file.... so.... go figure?

Unimaxium · Oct 19, 2005

Might have been a scan from a print or a film negative / slide. Those can be pretty high resolution. I once had a photoshop file that got to over 1gb after I edited it a lot. It's possible he resized it to 4x6, but made the ppi really high so there are still a lot of pixels in there. But you're totally right that for printing 4x6 200MB is wayyyyy overkill.

fadingaway1986 · Oct 19, 2005

ahh possibly... Not really sure.

I suggested he shrink one and try printing it - that would let us know if the machines just couldn't handle that size photo, or if there was something else. But he became rude and said "I am NOT shrinking it!"

I said "well I'm sorry then, I can't help you."

hehehehe

I wasn't suggesting he shrink them all and just print it like that - I suggested he try printing it like that and see if it worked.. but noooooooooooooooo

Oh well. at that size it would have taken us forever to print it, and would have only received 29c, so no loss.

DocFrankenstein · Oct 19, 2005

Try explaining to him that your printer doesn't output at more than 320 dpi and his eye isn't able to distinquish more than 200 dpi approx.

Or... let him harass your shop's competition. Once a stubborn idiot invests his ego in something, it gets expensive to change his opinion.

fadingaway1986 · Oct 20, 2005

yeah - hopefully he went elsewhere. I don't have the patience for people like that

Kinda like the people who jam their damn memory cards in our machines, and then get ****ty when I tell them we have to call a technician out and it will be a few days...

I had one guy the other day telling me we should have a sign telling him that he needed an adaptor for memory stick duo's (the little ones)... I pointed to the picture on the machine which showed this... and he was like "well it came up on the screen and told me to put it in there"... geez...

I also had another lady get ****ty because she ordered an 8x12, and decided it was too long, and I wouldn't let her have a 8x10 for free. She said she had no way of knowing it would be that big. So I took her to where the machines were and showed her - my boss had pictures printed in every size we do - two of each size - one in landscape and one in portrait and with the size in between them...

So this lady says "Well, you should have had a sign on the machine telling me they were there!"

darich · Oct 20, 2005

Doc

You mentioned that the eye can't see much better resolution that around 200dpi. Why then do places insist on 300dpi and not 200?

Meysha · Oct 20, 2005

So this lady says "Well, you should have had a sign on the machine telling me they were there!"

Maybe we should tattoo signs on the inside of her eyelids saying "remember to think".

Seriously though, stupid people really piss me off!

DocFrankenstein · Oct 20, 2005

darich said:
Doc

You mentioned that the eye can't see much better resolution that around 200dpi. Why then do places insist on 300dpi and not 200?

My mistake. The eye's resolution is 10 LINES per mm. so 240 LPI approx...

DPI is a bit different. So 300 DPI would theoretically be anywhere from 80 to 150 LPI...

fadingaway1986 · Oct 20, 2005

Meysha said:
Maybe we should tattoo signs on the inside of her eyelids saying "remember to think".

Seriously though, stupid people really piss me off!

LOL.

I said to her "well honestly, if we had to have signs for everything like that, we would have things plastered everywhere, and no one would read them"...

Funny thing is, it was an instant machine, so it has a scanner. On the scanner we have a sign that says "Please take your receipt to the counter to pay and then the staff will enter the password"...

This lady cancelled her own order, started another one, then came down to pay for them both!! I told her she had to do it again because she cancelled her own order..

idiot. Proved my point that signs don't work.

Rob · Oct 20, 2005

Rule #1 People are stupid
Rule #2 See rule 1

Meysha · Oct 20, 2005

Where's Rule #3?

Rob · Oct 20, 2005

Rule 3:

The Court holds a continuous annual Term commencing on the first Monday in October and ending on the day before the first Monday in October of the following year. See 28 U. S. C. §2. At the end of each Term, all cases pending on the docket are continued to the next Term.

Rule #3: Leadership Is Confusing As Hell

Rule 3: Know where you are in cyberspace - Netiquette varies from domain to domain

ksmattfish · Oct 20, 2005

fadingaway1986 said:
He said he would not compress them as they were for uni and he didn't want to lose any quality...

Then why is he saving them as jpegs? To get a 200 mb jpeg the original, uncompressed file would be 600mb+, and probably over a gigabyte.

Were they from a digital camera, or film scans, or graphics files? Even the medium format digital backs don't produce files anywhere close to that size. There are some large format scanning backs that do, but they aren't common. If you scan 4"x5" film at 3200 dpi you start to get uncompressed files, not jpegs, over 200mb.

I'm with Doc, he doesn't know what he's doing. There could be several problems going on here:

The files aren't jpegs, although I've never had a problem getting tiffs printed at any photo lab.

The files are 16 bit: people read that 16 bit is better than 8 bit, so they save it that way, but photo labs print 8 bit.

The files are Adobe RGB: people read that Adobe RGB color space is better than SRGB, so they save it that way, but photo labs print in the SRGB color space.

He used some software to increase the file size, thinking that way bigger is way better.

Don't worry, if your machine couldn't do it, he's not going to be able to get them printed straight from the disc where ever he goes. Some labs may be able to open the files in Adobe PS, and make new files that are printable, but it won't be from his original files.