Lowest Resolution for phone cases...

[Ucase Ltd]

Hey all,

This is a bit of a tricky one, as there is probably no black/white answer - (I'm not even sure if this is the best place for this thread)

I have a phone case site that has been in development for months. I finally have a web developer who is very good and trying to make it right but has some questions on image quality.

The site (case designer) can be found here: http://www.ucase.co.uk/designcover.php?case_id=32 It is not the latest version but will give you a good idea.

The issue is this...

When customer uploads image they have ability to zoom in/out.
Obviously if they zoom too much they will lose image quality (depending on original image size/resolution).

To combat this - the web developer wants to put a restriction on uploads so that if an image falls below a certain quality/resolution the customer cannot use it.

I am O.K with this but what limit do I put on the restriction?

Does anybody have experience of this kind of thing?


Thanks in advance,
John.

[ArtyGamer]

I've written something similar into my own ecommerce software so that clients don't end up with stupid little images being enlarged to fit the various sizes required for the site. When I first got into this lark, I experimented with various resolutions and anything below 300dpi (at a 1:1 ratio) just wasn't sharp enough. Anything above that made no actual improvement to the final image quality, at least not anything that you could see without a printer's loupe, so I stuck with 300dpi. To that end, that's what I'd recommend. I've just taken a look at all my templates and the maximum height (including bleed) is 2000 pixels so you could easily set it to that as a minimum.

Using a dpi minimum wouldn't work for you as the image itself may still be too small even if the resolution is high enough so it's best to work from the pixel dimensions instead. If it were possible, I'd also recommend something which checked the actual image quality to make sure that the customer hasn't just taken a small image and upscaled it to fit your requirements. I'm not sure how you'd go about that though, so it's best left to manual intervention. One thing I'd say is that I've just had a play around with your current designer and it's automatically adjusting any uploaded images. I uploaded a perfectly-scaled image for a phone case but the image was re-scaled on upload so that it was square rather than the original shape. Once I placed it on the case, I wasn't able to stretch it back to the original ratio, only resize it as a single unit. This may obviously be a moot point as you've already said that it's not the latest version but I thought it best to let you know before the programmer draws a line under it as it's simpler to make coding alterations as you're going rather than retrofit afterwards.

When I was looking at creating my own custom-design site I had considered using 3D meshes so that the customer would be able to shift their finished design around and see it from all angles but I haven't worked with 3D modelling since the days of the Amiga and it would mean having to pay someone else to create the meshes for me. Would end up being too expensive, and I don't like having to rely on third parties so I knocked the idea on the head.

Looking forward to seeing the finished module!

[Ucase Ltd]

Thanks very much for the detailed response.

I had advised developer on minimum 300dpi but had no idea about pixel guidance. Sounds like you know your stuff. I'll pass this on to him.


Yes the image uploader you are using was from a previous developer who just couldn't understand my requirements. I knew it wasn't right because image uploaded too quickly to be decent quality, but I didn't really understand what was going on behind the scenes. It is basically uploading a thumbnail of any image provided.


This is being rectified as we speak.

I also looked at 3D versions (as there is a stock one on the market) but also knocked it on the head because...

A) I just didn't like the feel of the UI
B) it would be a pain in the a*se every time I added a new case design and
C) I don't think I could replicate the exact positioning customer would expect to see from 3D version (e.g, you can guarantee some people would try to put text on side of case (I don't fancy fiddling around with that)

Thanks again for your advice

Will happily share once it's done.