Flash Site Design - Why do my imported images suddenly look BAD?

Author

Why do my imported images suddenly look BAD?

jmmclean

2004-04-01, 5:58 pm

Hi. I'm learning flash and, in the process, designing a website for my friend
Kevin, a musician. I would LOVE some help with the problem I've been having.

Things were going fine until I began work on the photo gallery, and the images
I began importing suddenly started coming in distorted. If you compare the
single-pixel black border of the photo on the front page to the borders and
image quality of the photos in the photo gallery (photos > photos here), you
will notice a distinct difference, with the borders being fuzzy and too thick
on one side and too thin on the other.

Now, I've, done have tests, and determined that (a) this has nothing to do
with the photos being converted into symbols, and (b) that something is going
awry on the way from the library to the stage. See, I even duplicated the
FRAME of the first page that i mentioned, with the perfect picture, and pasted
that on the photos page. The picture looked fine. But when I copy the actual
picture and paste that, it looks fuzzed out and bad.

This is very confusing. I have no idea what I could have done to have caused
this.

Any other critique would be so helpful. You guys really seem to know your
stuff. I wish I'd discovered the forum a while ago; I might have gotten
started sooner!

Here's the site as it is right now:

[L=http://www.hooverlive.com/hoovernew/flash/]http://www.hooverlive.com/hooverne
w/flash/[/L]

Thanks!

Malcolm

ladyluna

2004-04-01, 5:58 pm

The site is looking great! Love the color scheme and layout. Maybe keep band
text the same size as the other text.
As far as the picts go, don't know what to tell you except to try reimporting,
and if you are having trouble with it coming out of the library, just
import(not to library). Do they really need to be symbols? Also watch your jpg
compression when you publish.
luna

jmmclean

2004-04-01, 5:58 pm

Hey, ladyluna, thanks for your help!

I figured out what it was, finally. I guess I had my lock off or something,
because all the images (except for that first one!) were at coordinates like
185.3 and stuff like that. Flash tends to blur lines when you have them at
demi-pixels like that. So, that's what the problem was! I ended up putting a
rectangle shape around them anyway, because even then I couldn't get the
thumbnails quite right, but at least I know what was going on.

Yeah, don't worry, the large text on the band page was just to investigate a
strange lag on my roommate's slow computer. It seemed that large amounts of
text were the problem there. Heh heh. More on THAT one later.

Thanks again!

Malcolm

AlexisNeel

2004-04-01, 5:58 pm

Malcom,

It seems you got it worked out, so this might be late but here's what I
learned dealing with Flash and images.

I found using Fireworks to sharpen the images works wonders, and is a little
better than PS's un-sharp mask. Your images seem a bit blurry, compared to
what I imagine the originals are, Also, as you mentioned, Flash doesn't like
decimals. It also doesn't like 100% Alpha channel on images, at least in
tweens, so I always use 99% instead. I get no shift or "weirdness" with them.
Granted they are not sysmbols, except for the thumbnails, but I think it hwelps.

Good luck.

Alexis