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 resized the image to 453 pixels and compressed the image at 62% jpeg quality.

Then they added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 499 pixels and compressed the image at 24% jpeg quality.

Then someone reduced to a 56 color gif.

Someone else reduced to a 53 color gif.

Someone else reduced to a 52 color gif.

Then someone added a bit of contrast, added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 387 pixels and compressed the image at 69% jpeg quality.

Someone resized the image to 452 pixels and compressed the image at 24% jpeg quality.

Then someone resized the image to 412 pixels and compressed the image at 35% jpeg quality.

Someone else added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 465 pixels and compressed the image at 30% jpeg quality.

Then they added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 396 pixels and compressed the image at 12% jpeg quality.

Then they resized the image to 526 pixels and compressed the image at 30% jpeg quality.

Someone else resized the image to 376 pixels and compressed the image at 32% jpeg quality and someone reduced to a 13 color gif.

Then they resized the image to 416 pixels and compressed the image at 34% jpeg quality and someone else reduced to a 40 color gif.

Then they reduced to a 19 color gif and then someone added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 338 pixels and compressed the image at 19% jpeg quality.

Someone added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 357 pixels, compressed the image at 23% jpeg quality and after that, they resized the image to 348 pixels and compressed the image at 17% jpeg quality.

Someone reduced to a 14 color gif and then someone resized the image to 575 pixels and compressed the image at 25% jpeg quality.

After that, they added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 388 pixels, compressed the image at 14% jpeg quality and then someone added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 465 pixels and compressed the image at 22% jpeg quality.

After that, they resized the image to 448 pixels, compressed the image at 32% jpeg quality and someone resized the image to 336 pixels and compressed the image at 13% jpeg quality.

Then someone resized the image to 300 pixels, compressed the image at 29% jpeg quality and then they added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 528 pixels and compressed the image at 11% jpeg quality.

Then they resized the image to 539 pixels, compressed the image at 23% jpeg quality and after that, they resized the image to 569 pixels and compressed the image at 32% jpeg quality.

Finally they reduced to a 29 color gif.

Oh my, that got pretty bad.

Website by Joachim Michaelis