[sims] Pupil Photographs

[Stuart_C]

So I've got a bit of an issue getting decent photo's into SIMS. They have all been taken on various cameras by various people and need a bit of TLC before they can go into SIMS.

 

The problem I'm having is that as soon as I edit a picture, save it and improt it I loose a lot of the quality. For example I have a jpeg that is 950K and 2304 x 3456 px. If I put this in the image looks OK however has a black border as the aspect ratio is not correct for SIMS. If I crop the picture so that it's 2304x3072 (the same ration as 480x640) then save it, even without compressing the jpg so the file size is still quite large the Image in SIMS goes pixelated. If I resize it to 480x640 and improt it it looks pixelated. In both cases I can view the image in my graphics package and zoom in quite a long way before I have any loss of quality so I think it's something odd to do with the improt process into SIMS. Any advice?

[vikpaw]

Can't say i've had a problem. I've in the past always used the full images we produce, with large files, as the quality was great, but the new class lists printing function which is available to all is going to kill the server so i'm going to have to start reducing them again.

 

What program are you using to edit? Are you just importing a test picture manually or using a batch process. I don't think the import routine makes changes, but you never know what new quirks come with an upgrade.

 

Have you tried using it in a report / class list, it might be that it looks pixelated on profile/info screen but is okay when used...

[Stuart_C]

Vik,

I'm using MS Digital Image Suite 10 (don't ask) as I said it looks fine on the PC but not when imported into SIMS. And no it's doesn't look OK when I export it unfortunately. Im Importing them one at a time for the purposes of this test. There are not that many that I can't do it all manually.

[vikpaw]

It's not just the screen setting or something silly is it.

Are you on the summer update? If so, send me a before and after and i can try it for you. Other than that i can't think what else is doing it.

I reduced the size of some of our student photos and the quality did drop, it wasn't pixelated, more that it looked patchy, and solid colours had flecks of white on them, but the clarity was still good, and suitable.

[bossman]

We have our student photos done every year by a commercial company for the students to take home for their parents and this company actually puts them onto a disc in the right format for us at no extra cost and the admin staff just import them in when they are ready.

[Stuart_C]

Thanks for the help. I think that it might be due to the fact that my original graphics package is rubbish. I've been using PhotoShopElements and it all looks OK.

[vikpaw]

Makes sense. I just use Microsoft Office Picture Editor and it's alright.

We take ours in house via the ID card system and then I import from there.

[Sivadam]

The Photograph Importer facility in SIMS .net requires that the images should be displayed with 256 colours and be 480 pixels wide by 640 pixels high for optimum resolution. Photos of a larger size may well import but if there are a significant number, the import routine may hang.

The minimum size should be 140 by 180 pixels. They need to be .jpg .gif or .bmp

[Sylv3r]

We have our student photos done every year by a commercial company for the students to take home for their parents and this company actually puts them onto a disc in the right format for us at no extra cost and the admin staff just import them in when they are ready.

 

Yep, same here for our Year 7 students each year. For our Sixth form they all get their photos taken for their ID badges then we add the photos manually to their user details page - never had any issues with file or image sizes - although the quality is greatly reduced when imported.