Trying to set standards in an environment where many people are passing along family photographs in different formats, sizes, and of different quality has proven to be problematic over the years. We also find that without standards, most people tend to send or submit pictures that are way too big and in many ways more difficult to deal with than if they were of a lower quality. With the rebuilding of our web site we are setting some standards for the size, shape, quality, and documentation on photographs we hold.

We fully expect to be working on our own stock of photographs over the coming months to comply with these standards, and we recognize that this slows down the initial process of submitting items for others to view. From years of experience we found several problems we are trying to address with these new standards. The issues related to the documentation of photographs is addresses on a separate page and can be viewed by clicking here.

Image Formats

One of the first issues we need to address is the one of format. Today is it possible to create images in a number of formats, or to just fimd them in a format that looks good without questioning whether or not it is an efficient way to store the image. There is another issue with regard to images that deals with the ability to view and edit them once they are downloaded to your computer.

For these reasons we store the vast majority of images on this site in JPG (Joint Photographic Group) format, which has long been an accepted standard and should be viewable on almost any browser. The JPG format also offers a number of quality settings, and we try to be mindful of the use of the image when we select the quality we want to preserve. For example, the image to the left of this paragraph is in JPG format, and was saved at a very high quality setting. Even so, it only occupies about 59,000 characters of data which, with modern computers and much faster Internet connections, still represents a small quantity of data.

Why not use some other format like GIF or PNG? There are certainly many formats which we could use to store the images, but the JPG standard seems to fit us best. The one exception we have used is a presentation standard for a web page where transparency is a desired effect. PNG images seem to offer us the best results, but they are used sparingly. For example, the background for this page is a white image over a blue background. The white page is rendered as a PNG image since is offered the best results for shading at the transition points. If this page appears to be anything other than pure white, or the borders do not transition well to the blue background, then you are probably using an older browser that needs to be upgraded. If you have not already read them, then please see our notes on browser usage and testing by clicking here.

If you would like to submit a photograph, or if you download a picture from our web site we are following a number of standards to make the photographs more standard. We are not trying to store the largest quailty image available for every picture, but we do reference the photograph back to the person who has the original.

Individual Picture Standards

For pictures falling into the primary category of people or places. we are following these standards which will allow room for images and accompanying information.

• The image is stored in JPG format with a pixel resolution of 96 pixels per inch.
• Where possible, pictures should be maintained in their original color state.
• Vertical images are sized to approximately 4 inches wide by 7 inches high white background, with the picture occupying no more than 6 inches of the vertical space (See example).
• Horizontal images are sized to 5 inches high by 6 inches wide white background, with the image occupying no more than 4 inches of the vertical space (See example).
• Notations should be in the Tahoma or Arial font, size 12, and always on the bottom edge of the picture.

Tombstone Picture Standards

Pictures of cemeteries or graveyards should follow the same standards for pictures of places as listed above. Tombstones present a different challenge. Since the tombstones actually show the name of the person buried at that location, no special attachments are needed.

We resize all tombstone pictures to be 4 inches wide and let the height be dictated by the appropriate scale to not distort the picture.