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 560 pixels and compressed the image at 34% jpeg quality.

Someone reduced to a 36 color gif.

Then someone resized the image to 303 pixels and compressed the image at 57% jpeg quality.

Someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 469 pixels and compressed the image at 57% jpeg quality.

Someone else reduced to a 32 color gif.

Someone else added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 578 pixels and compressed the image at 48% jpeg quality.

Then they resized the image to 575 pixels and compressed the image at 27% jpeg quality.

Then someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 420 pixels and compressed the image at 13% jpeg quality.

Then someone reduced to a 59 color gif.

Then someone reduced to a 46 color gif.

Someone else resized the image to 426 pixels and compressed the image at 17% jpeg quality.

Then they added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 495 pixels and compressed the image at 33% jpeg quality and then someone reduced to a 17 color gif.

Then someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 505 pixels, compressed the image at 22% jpeg quality and after that, they added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 531 pixels and compressed the image at 10% jpeg quality.

Then they added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 461 pixels, compressed the image at 34% jpeg quality and after that, they resized the image to 314 pixels and compressed the image at 21% jpeg quality.

Then someone reduced to a 48 color gif and then they added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 453 pixels and compressed the image at 16% jpeg quality.

Then they reduced to a 36 color gif and then someone resized the image to 350 pixels and compressed the image at 10% jpeg quality.

Someone else reduced to a 22 color gif and then someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 540 pixels and compressed the image at 28% jpeg quality.

Then someone resized the image to 397 pixels, compressed the image at 33% jpeg quality and someone added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 465 pixels and compressed the image at 23% jpeg quality.

Someone else added a bit of contrast, resized the image to 320 pixels, compressed the image at 33% jpeg quality and after that and they reduced to a 42 color gif.

After that, they resized the image to 491 pixels, compressed the image at 34% jpeg quality and then someone added a bit of sharpen because it looked blurry, resized the image to 389 pixels and compressed the image at 32% jpeg quality.

Finally they resized the image to 563 pixels and compressed the image at 30% jpeg quality.

Oh my, that got pretty bad.

Website by Joachim Michaelis