profile pic problem

Ok i wanted to update my profile pics and im having serious problems. First i drag and dropped the pics i wanted in my pics tabs and it looked like they worked. when i opened profile again they were back to the old ones. i did this a few times then i deleted the profile pics that wouldnt go away. the second life pic is STILL there and the first life one dissapeared. this was a few days ago and i still cant seem to get it fixed. any help anyone can give with this? Thank you in advance

Sometimes you need to do it several times for it to stick. Make sure you do not change tabs before you select OK and make sure you select OK before you close the window.

Are you in Admin status? The pictures will not "take" if you are in Admin.

nah i dont think im in admin

When you close your profile after making the changes, are you clicking the OK button, or just using the x at the top? If you don't click OK or Apply, the changes won't stick.

While we're talking about profile pix...

I'm trying to update mine and it's coming out blurrier than I'd like. Is there a pixel dimension I can use to target my size and minimize load time?

A little research found the following from the SL Wiki...

Alternatively, you can prepare your image outside of Second Life (with Photoshop, for instance), then upload it with the File / Upload Image command. As you prepare your image, here are some things to consider:

The image will be displayed in an area that is 178x133 pixels.

If you upload an image that is smaller or larger than that, it will be stretched or shrunk to fit.

Unless you're an expert, you should probably make the image as large as possible and let Second Life size it appropriately.

The correct aspect ratio for a profile picture is 4:3. This means the width should be 4/3 of the height. For instance, 400x300, 600x450, 604x453, etc. If you make your image square, you will notice some slight distortion when your image is stretched or shrunk to fit in the profile picture area.

You must save your image as a PNG file.

Not quite correct, Alvaro. When uploading images, SL will round dimensions DOWN to the nearest power of two. So a pic that is 600x450 would get uploaded as (I think) 512x256. It would be blurry AND squished.

Take your pic at full screen resolution. Save it to your hard drive. Open in Photoshop or another image editor. Select a 4:3 area of the picture, copy and open it in a new image.

Here's the important step: Resize the new image to 512x512 (or 256x256, or 1024x1024...but I think 512 is the best compromise between detail and loading speed). UNcheck "Constrain Proportions" and let the image get squished for now.

You can save it as either a .tga or a .png file. (.bmp, too, I think).

Upload the image to SL, pay the L$10 fee.

Browse to your uploaded texture and select it as your new profile pic. It will magically stretch and become un-distorted.

That is indeed the important step: to use the graphics program to do the rescaling to power-of-two dimension, not let it happen during upload. (For pics, I generally upload a non-square image, often 512x256.) Most 2D graphics programs offer some options for how that rescaling is to be done, generally a trade-off between visual artifacts and blur. I usually try them all to see which one does best for the particular image.

(Oh, and don't judge by my profile pic. It's *supposed* to look all weird like that. Really.)

Make sure you click "OK" at the bottom before closing the window.

If you did that, then it's just SL, sometimes it takes a while to update pix.

I never thought of "dragging and dropping" for there - I click on where it is supposed to go (and then wait for up to 2 minutes for the inventory to open *sigh*), type in the name of the texture I want to have in there and choose select. Maybe it'll "stick" using that method.

It didn't the last time I tried it. I had to click the picture area and then browse through the selection window. Sorry, I should have been more clear.