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 reduced to a 28 color gif.

Someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 579 pixels and compressed the image at 33% jpeg quality.

Then they resized the image to 428 pixels and compressed the image at 64% jpeg quality.

Then they resized the image to 576 pixels and compressed the image at 63% jpeg quality.

Someone else resized the image to 304 pixels and compressed the image at 39% jpeg quality.

Someone resized the image to 434 pixels and compressed the image at 43% jpeg quality.

After that, they added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 384 pixels and compressed the image at 25% jpeg quality.

After that and they reduced to a 26 color gif.

Someone else resized the image to 401 pixels and compressed the image at 30% jpeg quality.

Someone reduced to a 38 color gif.

Then they added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 579 pixels and compressed the image at 18% jpeg quality.

Then someone resized the image to 437 pixels, compressed the image at 28% jpeg quality and someone resized the image to 559 pixels and compressed the image at 9% jpeg quality.

Someone resized the image to 469 pixels, compressed the image at 13% jpeg quality and then they resized the image to 466 pixels and compressed the image at 18% jpeg quality.

Then someone reduced to a 38 color gif and then someone resized the image to 560 pixels and compressed the image at 19% jpeg quality.

Then they resized the image to 320 pixels, compressed the image at 28% jpeg quality and then they resized the image to 335 pixels and compressed the image at 17% jpeg quality.

Then someone resized the image to 380 pixels and compressed the image at 23% jpeg quality and someone reduced to a 15 color gif.

Then someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 314 pixels and compressed the image at 19% jpeg quality and someone else reduced to a 13 color gif.

Someone else reduced to a 37 color gif and someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 463 pixels and compressed the image at 17% jpeg quality.

Someone added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 524 pixels, compressed the image at 14% jpeg quality and someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 413 pixels and compressed the image at 24% jpeg quality.

Then someone reduced to a 41 color gif and then someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 528 pixels and compressed the image at 35% jpeg quality.

Finally they reduced to a 20 color gif.

Oh my, that got pretty bad.

Website by Joachim Michaelis