Image information

The images on this page come from a large variety of sources, and we do not always have images of the quality we would prefer. (Assistance in providing better images is always gratefully received.)

Here is some technical information on our images. (Not all our images meet these standards, but this is the ideal we are working towards.)

Note that when the site was first put up, it included only 'Thumbnail' and 'Large' images; we are now adding 'Full-screen' images as we work on the various pages.

Type	Size	Compression	Subsampling	Comments
Thumbnail	200 pixels high (horizontal images) 250 pixels high (vertical images)	50	YUV411	Picked to minimize image size, to reduce page size (for large series), and also to minimize file size, and thereby reduce page loading time.
Full-screen	<1000 pixels high	30 or 50	YUV422	Picked to produce a roughly screen-sized image - 1000 pixels high, if we have an image with that much resolution, otherwise the best we have - with modest loading time (for people on slow connections, e.g. dialups). If this is the largest image we have, the compression level is 30 (to produce a very good image - see below); otherwise it will be 50 (to minimize the size and loading time, as the larger image will be available for high image quality).
Large	>1000 pixels high or Largest image available	30	YUV422	The largest image we have of the print. If there is a 'full-screen' image, and also this size, this will be one that is better than our 'full-screen' image; if not, and we have any image larger than the thumbnail, this will be it. Sometimes there is more than one of these, if our best-quality image has issues (e.g. trimmed margins). The compression level of 30 is picked to reduce image file size as much as possible, without losing image quality; extensive experimentation has showed that the large areas of block colour in typical woodblock prints respond well to this level of compression, without producing decompression artifacts.

Type

Size

Compression

Subsampling

Comments

Thumbnail

200 pixels high (horizontal images)
250 pixels high (vertical images)

YUV411

Picked to minimize image size, to reduce page size (for large series), and also to minimize file size, and thereby reduce page loading time.

Full-screen

<1000 pixels high

30 or 50

YUV422

Picked to produce a roughly screen-sized image - 1000 pixels high, if we have an image with that much resolution, otherwise the best we have - with modest loading time (for people on slow connections, e.g. dialups).

If this is the largest image we have, the compression level is 30 (to produce a very good image - see below); otherwise it will be 50 (to minimize the size and loading time, as the larger image will be available for high image quality).

Large

>1000 pixels high
or
Largest image available

YUV422

The largest image we have of the print. If there is a 'full-screen' image, and also this size, this will be one that is better than our 'full-screen' image; if not, and we have any image larger than the thumbnail, this will be it.

Sometimes there is more than one of these, if our best-quality image has issues (e.g. trimmed margins).

The compression level of 30 is picked to reduce image file size as much as possible, without losing image quality; extensive experimentation has showed that the large areas of block colour in typical woodblock prints respond well to this level of compression, without producing decompression artifacts.

Watermarks

Note that our larger images generally contains watermarks - this is to protect the people and institutions who have provided our images. If someone has a particular need for images without watermarks, they should contact us and we can discuss it.

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Last updated: 1/December/2010