Creating an avatar from a photograph

Many folk like to have an avatar created from a photo of their pet or other animal photo.

An avatar for use in the Tech Support Forum has a maximum size of 100 by 100 pixels or 19.5 KB (whichever is smaller).

A modern 8 Megapixel digital camera will produce an image in the order of 3504×2336 pixels and have a file size of about 3 Mb. This photograph is invariably saved in the camera or on the computer as a .jpg file and contains millions of colours

Whilst it is easy to reduce the image down to 100×100 pixels, it is not easy to get a .jpg file size down to the allowable maximum of 19.5 Kb. To get a .jpg file size down to 19.5 or below would require severe compression. When introducing this compression, .jpg artifacts make the resulting image very poor quality.Best Professional Data Recovery Software

The best way of getting your photograph to comply with the maximum size and still retain virtually all of its quality is to convert it into a different format.

The .gif format is a format that only allows 256 colours, not the millions that a .jpg allows. For the proposes of creating an avatar, this reduction in colour levels does not matter.

For example, the first photo of the robin is a .jpg and has a file size of 32Kb. The second is a .gif with a file size of 9 Kb. Both images are 100×100 pixels.

The difference in quality is hardly noticeable.

As in most things to do with computers, there is usually more than one way of doing things. Converting from .jpg to .gif is no different. There are several ways of doing so. Most imaging software will allow you to save an image as a .gif

One essential point to take notice of is that you must always work from a copy of the photograph, never from the original. That way if things go wrong you have not destroyed the original and you can then revert back and start over again. Let us assume the original file name is similar to ‘img01234.jpg’. A quick way of making a copy is to open the file in your favourite imaging software, then use File>Save As. In the example ‘img01234.jpg’ was saved as ‘robin1.jpg’. All subsequent work was done with that file.Sd Card Data Recovery

The example process shown below was done using Adobe Photoshop. The process will vary, depending on the imaging software you have. The principles are the same. When selecting a suitable photograph for use as an avatar, try and make sure that the subject stands out from the background and is suitable for use in a family oriented forum.