* Charles Logan (clogan@bluenorthernsoftware.com) [030606 14:34]:
> I'm not sure when this little problem began, but the only system changes have
> been updates from security.debian. The system is an all stable Woody box.
> The problem is that images saved in the jpg format appear horribly blurred and
> smudged. This is true no matter which application saves the image. Gimp,
> Kpaint, Xv, etc all exhibit the same behavior. If an image is saved in any
> other format, gif, png, bmp, xbm, etc, when displayed, it looks fine. The
> problem is most noticeable if text is used, but any object placed on a canvas
> with any drawing program will have a smudgy, ghost like shadow 20-40 pixels
> around the object, as well as washed out and blotchy looking color in the
> object itself. I made a simple black text on white back ground image with
> Gimp and saved it in jpg, gif, and tif formats. gif and tif look nice and
> crisp and clean when the image is viewed with a web browser or a image
> viewing program, but the jpg version looks terrible. Other jpg images from
> other sources appear fine, so it has to be something happening when a program
> on this system saves a jpg image. My default desktop is KDE 2.2.2, with X11
> 4.2.0. I have also tried other window managers, Gnome, Fvwm, IceWm but the
> same results occur no matter what. All other graphics related items seem to
> be fine. The default desktop is 800x600 with 24 bit depth, although I have
> also tried lower resolutions and color depth with no change. The video card
> is a Trident CyberBlade AGP. I'm quite sure that this problem is something
> fairly new as I have used Gimp previously to create many web images that were
> saved in jpg format without this happening. Any ideas as to what might be
> causing this? Thanks!
Chris's advice is good. I agree that this just sounds like the way that
JPEG works, and not a problem with your system (although trying some of
the things Chris suggested may get you better results). Really, thouhg,
rather than trying to optimize the JPEG output in this particular case,
I'd recommend only using JPEG for photos, and PNG for graphics like what
you describe above. Anything with text should almost certainly be a PNG
instead of a JPEG. Google around for jpg vs png, you'll see some
examples of it. You might also get good examples searching for gif vs
jpg, which still apply, but you should use PNG instead of GIF, because
it's Free, superior, and (at long last) widely supported.
good times,
Vineet
--
http://www.doorstop.net/
--
#include<stdio.h>
int main() {
puts("Reader! Think not that \n"
"technical information \n"
"ought not be called speech;");
return 0;
}
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