Graphics

Internet Image Degradation

Do things grow old in cyberspace? The answer is "yes"...

When pictures are constantly copied from website to website, and recompressed and rescaled every time, an interesting loss of quality occurs gradually over time. This page tries to simulate and display this gradual devolution. The first picture is the original.

First someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 556 pixels and compressed the image at 20% jpeg quality.

Then they added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 580 pixels and compressed the image at 30% jpeg quality.

After that, they resized the image to 438 pixels and compressed the image at 31% jpeg quality.

After that, they resized the image to 365 pixels and compressed the image at 46% jpeg quality.

Then someone resized the image to 506 pixels and compressed the image at 62% jpeg quality.

Then they resized the image to 432 pixels and compressed the image at 60% jpeg quality.

Then someone reduced to a 25 color gif.

After that, they resized the image to 391 pixels and compressed the image at 14% jpeg quality.

Someone else resized the image to 335 pixels and compressed the image at 18% jpeg quality.

Someone resized the image to 572 pixels and compressed the image at 21% jpeg quality.

After that, they added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 463 pixels and compressed the image at 30% jpeg quality.

Then someone reduced to a 21 color gif and someone resized the image to 314 pixels and compressed the image at 8% jpeg quality.

Then someone reduced to a 30 color gif and someone else added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 317 pixels and compressed the image at 18% jpeg quality.

Then they resized the image to 534 pixels, compressed the image at 13% jpeg quality and then they added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 467 pixels and compressed the image at 9% jpeg quality.

Someone resized the image to 339 pixels, compressed the image at 28% jpeg quality and someone resized the image to 450 pixels and compressed the image at 32% jpeg quality.

Someone else resized the image to 512 pixels, compressed the image at 27% jpeg quality and then someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 552 pixels and compressed the image at 8% jpeg quality.

Someone reduced to a 21 color gif and then someone reduced to a 29 color gif.

Then someone resized the image to 461 pixels, compressed the image at 14% jpeg quality and after that and they reduced to a 13 color gif.

Someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 301 pixels, compressed the image at 22% jpeg quality and someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 389 pixels and compressed the image at 18% jpeg quality.

Someone else added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 395 pixels, compressed the image at 25% jpeg quality and someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 468 pixels and compressed the image at 28% jpeg quality.

Finally someone reduced to a 36 color gif.

Oh my, that got pretty bad.

Website by Joachim Michaelis