Just a quick note on images on this blog. So far, I’ve generally been embedding full resolution, losslessly compressed PNG format images in the blog. I prefer having the full resolution, lossless images available on the blog since they are the exact output from my renderer. However, full resolution lossless PNGs can get fairly large (several MB for a single 1920x1080 frame), which is dragging down the load times for the blog.

Going forward, I’ll be embedding lossy compressed JPG images in blog posts, but the JPGs will link through to the full resolution, lossless PNG originals. Fortunately, high quality JPG compression is quite good these days at fitting an image with nearly imperceptible compression differences into a much smaller footprint. I’ll also be going back and applying this scheme to old posts too at some point.

Addendum 04/08/2016: Now that I am doing some renders in 4K resolution (3840x2160), it’s time for an addendum to this policy. I won’t be uploading full resolution lossless PNGs for 4K images, due to the overwhelming file size (>30MB for a single image, which means a post with just a handful of 4K images can easily add up to hundreds of MB). Instead, for 4K renders, I will embed a downsampled 1080P JPG image in the post, and link through to a 4K JPG compressed to balance image quality and file size.