User talk:A gossip-loving Toad
For the next few months I will be having military training, adjusting to university life, etc., so might be unable to respond. Also, it's time to archive.
GIFs
I noticed you uploaded a new version of File:PMHerringway.gif. Generally, it would be a waste of your time continuing to resize and crop those kinds of GIFs as I just replaced it with File:PM Herringway.png. I know I can do this easily compared to screenshot taking but there are many single frame GIFs in Category:Paper Mario Images that should be replaced with PNG counterparts. That would be tedious to perform for right now. Don't convert the GIF to PNG. GIFs have a limited color palette and are not favorable for static images. Animated is OK. There are hundreds of sprite sheets here (I used it for Herringway). It isn't as high of a priority as the terrible screenshots that need replacing because the GIF sprites are OK in quality for now. --Wildgoosespeeder (talk) (Stats - Contribs) 03:48, 28 August 2016 (EDT)
Hi there, gossip-toad! I'll do my best to answer your questions.
Wildgoosespeeder mentioned that the some of the screenshots on List of Star Pieces in Paper Mario had issues due to conversion from JPEG and GIF to PNG. Would it be worthwhile to retake them? I'm not sure if it's good to bloat up the file histories for little quality improvement.
If we've got the resources and ability to re-take those screenshots, then I would encourage doing so. Most screenshots on that list page are visibly low in quality, with a lot of JPG compression artefacts. Compare the same Template:Plainlink and Template:Plainlink screenshot. The latter is definitely sharper, clearer and more ideal. And don't worry about bloating up the file histories: the properly captured PNG version appear to have a much lower file size compared to the JPG. So recapturing the images would also be good for the page's loading time.
Additionally a captured PNG is definitely preferred over a GIF, due to the limited color palette as Wildgoosespeeder said in the section above. The colors of a GIF Nintendo 64 screenshot wouldn't be accurate to the actual game.
If a 640x480 Paper Mario screenshot is of higher quality than a 320x240 one, is it OK to upload a 640x480 one (if it does not break page consistency)?
Still using the "List of Star Pieces" page as an example, I'd prefer to see all images used on such page having the same resolution (especially because they all appear sharp and clear at the current lower resolution on that page). But certainly, if a higher resolution screenshot for a home console doesn't break page consistency (such as a screenshot on a character page, rather than a list page), then feel free to upload it.
A lot of Paper Mario screenshots have been uploaded to the wiki and some of them, if compared with the hardware output of the same scene, lack the black borders present in the latter. The problem is that it's not sure if they have been cropped, since many uploaders just state the game name in the source parameter without mentioning where they got their screenshots. (I would guess emulators for most of them, though.) Is there anything that needs to be done to existing screenshots that are borderless in this sense?
If the actual hardware output shows black borders, then screenshots without them must have been edited in some way before being uploaded. I understand that if people don't state it themselves, we may not be sure exactly how they have modified the screenshots. So rather than adding specific information in aboutfile on the file being cropped (as you would if you cropped it yourself), when the original uploader has not specified it, I think it's still worth stating in a more general way: "The black borders shown in the original hardware output are not shown" – Something more general and broad would be acceptable, rather than assuming that they've cropped them out.
I hope I have clearly and adequately answered your questions.
