As you know, any image transformed and sent by ActiveX/Java Uploader is called thumbnail. To upload thumbnails you need to create a Converter and set its Mode property to Thumbnail. Then you should use its ThumbnailXXX properties to configure thumbnails. This topic examines resizing and recompressing settings and describes how to handle the situation when a thumbnail cannot be created.
ActiveX/Java Uploader Express and Professional restrict a size (width x height) of each created thumbnail to 3 and 5 megapixels respectively. For example, the size of 1500x1500 thumbnail is 2.25 megapixels (1500 pixels x 1500 pixels = 2.25 megapixels), thus, such a thumbnail can be uploaded with ActiveX/Java Uploader Express. See the Upload Suite Editions topic for details.
There are three settings specifying how the original image will be resized to create a thumbnail:
The ThumbnailFitMode is quite complicated, so let us describe it in detail. Fit mode is an important setting for thumbnail creation. It specifies if the thumbnail should be resized at all, and if so, how it should be shrunk to fit the specified dimensions. The ThumbnailFitMode property has the following possible values:
ActiveX/Java Uploader can only downsize images, so if specified thumbnail size (ThumbnailHeight and ThumbnailWidth) is larger than size of the original image, thumbnail and the original image will be equal in size.
If you know target image DPI and size (in inches), you can calculate thumbnail width and height by multiplying target values. For example, you want to get 4"x6" image with 72 DPI, then you should set ThumbnailWidth to 432 (432 pixels = 6 inches x 72 DPI) and ThumbnailHeight to 288 (288 pixels = 4 inches x 72 DPI).
The next example illustrates how to create a thumbnail converter and set its general properties.
<aur:Uploader ID="Uploader1" runat="server">
<Converters>
<aur:Converter Mode="*.*=Thumbnail"
ThumbnailHeight="200"
ThumbnailWidth="200"
ThumbnailFitMode="Fit" />
</Converters>
</aur:Uploader>
$uploader = new Uploader("Uploader1");
$converters = &$uploader->getConverters();
$converter = new Converter();
$converter->setMode("*.*=Thumbnail");
$converter->setThumbnailWidth(200);
$converter->setThumbnailHeight(200);
$converter->setThumbnailFitMode("Fit");
$converters[] = $converter;
var u = $au.uploader({
id: 'Uploader1',
converters: [{mode: '*.*=Thumbnail',
thumbnailWidth: 200,
thumbnailHeight: 200,
thumbnailFitMode: 'Fit'}]
});
u.writeHtml();
The only thumbnail supported file format is JPEG. It means that a thumbnail will be a JPEG image whatever format an original image has.
This image format has an ability to balance between file size and image quality. You can specify JPEG quality of a thumbnail via the
ThumbnailJpegQuality property which accepts a number in the range [0, 100].
If you specify 0, the file will be extremely small, but the quality will be very low (almost always unacceptable). Alternatively,
if you specify 100, the file will be quite large, but JPEG artifacts will be almost invisible. Usually, small images
have rather low quality (to be loaded quickly), whereas screen-size images have higher quality. The default ThumbnailJpegQuality
value is 80 which is the most balanced and common JPEG quality.
If you set the JPEG quality to a large value, and upload a JPEG file that has poor quality initially, the file size may increase (although the quality will not become better). It is not guaranteed that the output JPEG will have the same or less size than the original file. This effect is caused by specificity of JPEG compression algorithm.
That is why if you expect that users will upload poor-quality JPEG files, it makes sense to set the quality to a low value.
There is also the ThumbnailResizeQuality property which is related to the thumbnail quality. This property specifies the quality of resize. The resize quality should not be confused with the JPEG quality: the latter specifies the quality of recompression, not resize. As for now, you may choose between the following quality values: Low, Medium, and High. The default is Medium, as soon as it provides fast resizing and good quality at the same time.
ActiveX/Java Uploader allows specifying image resolution for created thumbnails via the ThumbnailResolution property. This parameter is measured in DPI and sets horizontal and vertical resolution of
a thumbnail. You can set your custom resolution for thumbnails or keep an original image resolution. The default value of the ThumbnailResolution is 0 meaning that the original image resolution is used.
ActiveX/Java Uploader cannot resize images up. Therefore, if you specify thumbnail dimensions bigger than dimensions
of the original file, the thumbnail will be actually created with the dimensions of the original file. Optionally ActiveX/Java Uploader
allows to send the original file instead of thumbnail (which is recompressed to JPEG while it is created) in the case when dimensions and file size
of the original file are not bigger than the dimensions and file size of the thumbnail. To enable this behavior you should set the
ThumbnailCompressOversizedOnly property to true.
All the thumbnails are created as JPEG images, and the JPEG format does not support transparency. That does not mean that you will be unable to create
thumbnails for transparent images. The thumbnails will simply be created on a background of some color. You can set this color using the
ThumbnailBgColor property. To specify desired background color use a hex representation of
the RGB triad in HTML-style syntax (#rrggbb). Default background color is white (#FFFFFF).
ActiveX/Java Uploader Express does not keep original color space while creating thumbnails. See the Upload Suite Editions topic for details.
An original image may have RGB, CMYK, Grayscale, or some else color space. By default ActiveX/Java Uploader creates
RGB thumbnails. If this behavior does not suit you, set the ThumbnailKeepColorSpace property
to true, as a result the thumbnail will be created in the original color space.
It is possible that some specific thumbnail will fail to be created, for example, when the original file is corrupted or it is non-image. To handle this situation specify one more conversion mode (e.g. SourceFile or Icon) after the Thumbnail one. In this case, if applying of the first mode has failed, ActiveX/Java Uploader will try to use the next one.
The following example illustrates the idea.
<aur:Uploader ID="Uploader1" runat="server">
<Converters>
<!-- Send the source file if the thumbnail cannot be created -->
<aur:Converter Mode="*.*=Thumbnail;*.*=SourceFile" />
<!-- Send an icon if the thumbnail cannot be created -->
<aur:Converter Mode="*.*=Thumbnail;*.*=Icon" />
</Converters>
</aur:Uploader>
$uploader = new Uploader("Uploader1");
$converters = &$uploader->getConverters();
$converter = new Converter();
//Send the source file if the thumbnail cannot be created
$converter->setMode("*.*=Thumbnail;*.*=SourceFile");
$converters[] = $converter;
$converter = new Converter();
//Send an icon if the thumbnail cannot be created
$converter->setMode("*.*=Thumbnail;*.*=Icon");
$converters[] = $converter;
var u = $au.uploader({
id: 'Uploader1',
converters: [
//Send the original file if the thumbnail cannot be created
{mode: '*.*=Thumbnail;*.*=SourceFile'},
//Send an icon if the thumbnail cannot be created
{mode: '*.*=Thumbnail;*.*=Icon'}
]
});
u.writeHtml();