Pixlr is still my photo editing tool of choice for blog pics. It's online, it's free, and it has a decent tool kit which makes it accessible for scrooges like myself. The main purpose of my editing is not an aesthetic one, nor one that is immediately obvious.
I make pictures smaller.
Why? Because file size is something you need to be mindful of. Nothing makes me flee a post faster than having a whole set of high res pictures slowly loading on one page. If you want to make a gallery post, have small resolution thumbnails on the "landing" page which when clicked link to the larger image. It's more work but I guarantee your readers will appreciate it.
I've been using Paint.net for years but Pixlr looks interesting. I might try it out. It has literally never occurred to me to think about the file size of the image and I post thousands of pictures. I wouldn't know which format was smaller without looking it up. I tend to use whatever format the particular MMO happens to use as default. I did used to change them to jpeg but I stopped doing that a long time ago.
ReplyDeletePictures load almost instantly on my cable connection and even on the not-good wifi at work there's not much delay if I run through Feedly on my phone. I haven't seen that thing where pictures slowly fill in for years, possibly not since I was on dial-up.
What does put me off is when blogs use a whole slew of scripts. I do sometimes lose patience and jump back out if scripts are taking a long time to run. I'm not keen on overlays and the like and gifs can be a pain but flat images generally seem fine.
Oh yeah, script loaders are a paaaaain. As for the pictures loading up, alas not all of us have speedy internet connection. Heck, mine isn't even unlimited. ;)
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