The uploaded image is too big

[gigatoaster]

Hello there

I just got an iPhone 15 Pro and I wanted to share a picture on the forum but I got an error message.

It must cost a lot of money but would it be possible to increase the size of uploaded picture to 4 or 5 MB?

The one I wanted to upload was 3,4 MB.

 

[HDFan]

Select the picture in finder, right click to get to Quick Actions and Convert image. Change to acceptable size.

Had an issue with a site where images were horrible in one browser, good in others. The blurry image was 12 KB, non-blurry one was 399 KB. Don't know the optimal browser size but likely 1 MB or lower.

 

[gigatoaster]

Thanks. It would be nice though, if higher file size was natively compatible on the forum.

 

[Weaselboy]

I believe it is set to allow up to 5MB.

See my older comment below for what may be going on.

I've run into that also and it is usually not the image size (in MB) that is the issue, but rather the dimensions of the image being too large for the forum software to handle. If you open the image in Preview or similar and knock it down by 10-20% or so, that seems to make it work.

It is an odd issue because both the before and after image can be under the MB size limit and the larger image won't work for whatever reason.

 

[Boyd01]

I have no idea how the software is configured here at MacRumors, but I'm an admin on another site that runs Xenforo and there are separate limits for file size and image dimensions which can be set in the admin control panel under Setup > Options > Attachments. The image dimensions limit is optional.

 

[gigatoaster]

Interesting, I didn’t know it was both the size & the resolution that was the problem.

Here is an example:

Do you think the resolution is too big? I’m traveling outside home this days so I don’t have access to Preview. But I’ll try when I’m back home.

 

[chown33]

I just did a test with an image having dimensions 6466x5173 and it failed with the exact error message you gave.

The file size was a mere 530KB because it was all white. I started with a JPEG image I had with the given dimensions, and messed with the color and contrast curves to make it entirely white.

 

[gigatoaster]

Understood. Let me try to ping @admin

 

[WildCowboy]

The limit is set to 2000 pixels in either dimension. With over a million attachments in our database, you can imagine they take up a good amount of storage space.

I will defer to @arn about whether the size limit might be increased, but at least for inline display in threads, 2000px is certainly sufficient.

 

[gigatoaster]

Understood thanks for taking the time to answer.

 

[Clix Pix]

One of the first things photographers learn when submitting their images for scrutiny on the internet is that (1) it is important to resize the image to fit on the destination site and (2) when using not just "real" cameras but also smartphone cameras it really does make a difference when taking the time to actually thoughtfully edit the image first, rather than just tossing it up on the internet willy-nilly......

 

[gigatoaster]

Hello @arn , would you be opened to increase picture dimensions on the forum to 6000? Would that make pictures 3 times bigger in the DB? Or maybe limit to certain forum or threads only, like the “new pictures with your new iPhone?”

 

[Boyd01]

[...] increase picture dimensions on the forum to 6000? Would that make pictures 3 times bigger in the DB?

Ignoring the effects of data compression, a 6000 x 6000 image is actually 9 times bigger than a 2000 x 2000 image! That's because area is a squared function - it would be 3x wider and 3x taller, so 3 x 3 = 9.

Anyway, 6000x6000 would be way too large for forum attachments IMO.

 

[HDFan]

would you be opened to increase picture dimensions on the forum to 6000?

Why would you want 6000? You would never see the difference in a browser unless zoomed in. See post #2.

 

[dannyyankou]

Why would you want 6000? You would never see the difference in a browser unless zoomed in. See post #2.

In the pictures taken with iPhone thread, people are curious to see the quality of the images. Part of that includes zooming in to see the level of detail. Especially with HEIF max photos, people are going to be wanting to upload a lot more 48mp images.

 

[madeirabhoy]

how can someone on their iphone reduce the file size or image dimensions? i dont tend to post pics on here, but i do on a football forum, often just screenshots, but since i moved to a 14pro its always too big. i can always edit the picture later on my mac but sometimes time is of importance.

 

[Boyd01]

I'm sure there are apps for that, and probably some other tricks as well but that's something I normally do in photoshop on my Mac. However, one simple trick would be to just mail the image you want to re-size to yourself as an attachment. Before sending, Mail will ask if you want to reduce the size and offer several options.

 

[Weaselboy]

how can someone on their iphone reduce the file size or image dimensions? i dont tend to post pics on here, but i do on a football forum, often just screenshots, but since i moved to a 14pro its always too big. i can always edit the picture later on my mac but sometimes time is of importance.

How to reduce photo size on iPhone (4 quick ways)

Reducing photo file size helps maximize storage on your iPhone. Here are quick ways to reduce the size of a photo on your iPhone or iPad.

www.igeeksblog.com

About halfway down this page it shows how to make an iOS Shortcut that will resize an image.

 

[gigatoaster]

It works with the “download shortcuts” article in the link provided above. I also found this app that does it easily. https://apps.apple.com/fr/app/image-resizer-free/id824057618?l=en-GB

 

[Andrey84]

Hello @Weaselboy, @Boyd01, @WildCowboy, @chown33,

I'm really struggling to upload some pictures of my DIY upgrade into my thread. The system has accepted two files which are 4032 × 3024, and under 4.1 MB. However, I'm now trying to reduce the size of other pictures I've taken during the same time, and I'm already down to 3.9MB. The system keeps rejecting the images and says "The uploaded image is too big." This is very confusing.

Can the error message please be changed to state the image size and dimension requirements clearly?

 

[960design]

Hello @Weaselboy, @Boyd01, @WildCowboy, @chown33,

I'm really struggling to upload some pictures of my DIY upgrade into my thread. The system has accepted two files which are 4032 × 3024, and under 4.1 MB. However, I'm now trying to reduce the size of other pictures I've taken during the same time, and I'm already down to 3.9MB. The system keeps rejecting the images and says "The uploaded image is too big." This is very confusing.

I resize all images (proportionally) to 800px wide, then export for web. This is typically large enough for forum users to view, yet also saves the forum owners storage space.

Can the error message please be changed to state the image size and dimension requirements clearly?

This is an excellent UX request.

 

[Boyd01]

The image and file size attachment options are part of the Xenforo admin control panel, so moderators (like me) don't have any access to that. I'm an admin on another site that runs Xenforo and over there the maximum file size defaults to 16MB and there are no restrictions on pixel dimensions. Both of these can be set to whatever the site administration chooses, but I don't know what's being used here.

Will say that there's really no reason (that I can think of) why you would want to use an image over 4000 pixels wide. IIRC, Xenforo will automatically re-scale anything larger than about 1000 pixels wide (although you can view the full resolution version by clicking the image).

I don't think there's any (obvious) way to change the alert for images that are too large, that appears to be hard-wired into the forum software, but maybe there's a config file you can manually edit?

Personally, I'd agree that 800 pixels is a good size, maybe 1000 if there's some small details? I use photoshop to scale my images, but I'm sure there are other methods.... just got a new Mini with Sequoia and notice that if you right click an image, under quick actions there's a Convert option that has a choice of large/medium/small sizes for example. And Preview also has Tools > Adjust Size.

Also, if you use Apple Mail on iOS, when you attach a large photo it asks whether you want to reduce the size and gives several options. I often use that as a quick way to resize and e-mail the images to myself to post from my computer.

 

[jimthing]

What happens if someone is trying to upload a wallpaper that's large though?
eg. 6018×3386 or 5120×2880 are both standard Mac sizes now.

Cannot do this on MR, unfortunately.

 

[chown33]

Attached ZIP file holding "All-white.jpg", 10800 × 7200.

This is to verify that uploading a ZIPped JPEG with large dimensions works.
The ZIP file is under 4KB; the unzipped JPEG is ~1.2MB.

Untested: There may be a limit to the size of ZIP files.

The image was produced by starting with a not-all-white image, then adjusting Contrast and other settings until an all-white image resulted. That was then saved as a new file.

 

[Boyd01]

Untested: There may be a limit to the size of ZIP files.

Looking at the admin control panel on my other Xenforo site, there appears to be just one global setting for attachment size, regardless of file type. On that site, we are using the default size of 16,384 KB. As I said, no idea of how this is configured at MacRumors. But unless there's another setting I've missed (which is quite possible!) then you wouldn't be able to get around the attachment size limit by using .zip instead of .jpg or .png files.