Moving pictures with the best quality

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A friend has asked me to print a picture which originated with her brother in another state. Phase One was him sending the JPG to her via Text and her sending it on to us via Signal. Both of these, I believe, do image compression, so we have asked for it to be resent using email … based on the (mis?)belief that email encodes for transmission, but doesn’t compress or otherwise alter the image. Right?

So, other than verifying the above, the question is what to use and what to avoid in order to preserve image quality.

  • I have read about selecting High instead of Standard in Media Quality in Signal, but that is still going to do some compression.
  • I have read about using File instead of Photos and Videos when adding the image in Signal, but not tested it yet,
  • I have thought about sharing via some cloud storage, but am unsure what to do. A couple of us (not me) use iPhones, if that helps.

Suggestions?

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Drop it in a google drive and share the link to the file. Keeps it original.

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I will have to see if the source of the photo has anything like this.

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My only thought, not reliable, is that to attach it to the email as a file, rather than embed it as a picture. If that even makes sense.

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Always! Embedded might work for psycho effects, but attach for sure to send the file. I’ve always thought that was loss free, but now I am less sure.

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Text for one of my iPhone images takes an 11.4 MB image down by at least 90%. Email the image. I hope the Android system has similar capabilities – but I don’t know.

IMG0189.PNG
IMG0189.PNG1320×2868 389 KB

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My issue here is trying to keep the transmittal function from reducing the detail in the original image … lots of ways to make it smaller.

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When you say “keep the transmittal function”, if you mean send via text message, I don’t think it is possible unless you convince the Apple or Google to rewrite they software to suit your desires.

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No, wanting a way to send the file without the sending process altering what is received. Text was simply the other end’s first try.

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Hi @Tamhas,

I guess I don’t understand.

Have you tried printing the photo and found it is poor quality?

When you view the photo, is it fuzzy?

Back in the uucp days and old email, binary files were uuencoded because the entire email stream was based on text. We used to send compiled binary program files all the time with any loss.

In the “modern” email environment, the commonality of seamlessly sending binary files is handled the same way, no change to the file. No encoding.

As far as compression goes, most modern graphic files, JPEG included, are compressed. Running these files through a compression routine/program rarely accomplishes anything.

In fact, I have made tar files of a directory of photos for storage and tried running gzip or compress on it. What I found was time was never worth it. Some files were actually larger in their ‘compress’ state!

If a sending organization changes what is sent, they would not be in operation for very long.

That said, some storage places, like Google, do change the image size when you store a file on them. But they tell you up front that they do that.

The below image of my house (Jan 8, 2023, click link and go 3/4 down page) stored in Google Photos is 1795x1324 pixels. The original that I uploaded is 4000x3000

Google Photos

Unless the company tells the user that the content of their message will be modified, they are thin legal ice if they make changes.

Does that help you?

Gene
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I am old enough to have been there for the uucp days … and then some. I know about encrypting binary files for transmission with no loss and about compression that preserves most of an image while making it notably smaller.

The image we have is reasonable, particularly after a wee bit of Photoshop … but I was wondering about making it a bit better yet. I use text very little and not for images, so started out unsure. While I use images in Signal, thus far it has only been for low-rez applications. Virtually all of my high rez-work is local so the transmission issue doesn’t come up. Thus, wanting to check what distant transmission protocols would get the image here in one piece.