Thanks for the feedback guys. These are things I'll be looking at during this phases of analysing the server performance etc. One thing for sure is that due to the current sizes of images it IS having a performance hit not on the server but with the data pipe from the server which is indicating reduced site load times depending on how many people are using the site at the same time and viewing images.

I've now had more chance to examine logs etc. and I have found we are wasting a great deal of bandwidth with in turn is affecting the site speed at certain times.

I have made some tests on large images and enforcing the 256Kb limit will help the site greatly, numbers do not lie and here are my findings:

All the following images are random full size images with different amount of detail etc. in them, firstly the resolution is changed to 72ppi then the image is resized to 800px. I have indicated the file sizes based on 80% jpg compression and 90% compression:

portrait_1 1279x1621 465Kb | 80% - 70.79K | 90% - 131.93k
portrait_2 1977x1526 1.91MB | 80% - 46.57k | 90% - 76.99k
portrait_3 2592x3458 2.74MB | 80% - 133.01k | 90% - 232.80k

You can see from the above, a 256KB limit will allow a lot of scope for members to resize images their images effectively for the site and we will also save a lot of wasted bandwidth, it will improve members site experience in terms of speed and save us heaps of HDD space too.

The 256KB max image size will take immediate affect again and the notification will be updated in the upload page to include.

__________________
Paul

www.phrphotography.com