18 replies to this topic

[SKETCHi]

We've all seen them, or haven't seen them depending on which free image host they used. I'm talking about the tutorials written in one or two giant images.

I have one question, why? What is the point of placing all of the text in one giant image? This doesn't help your website in any way. Search engines couldn't care less about it, it makes the page load slower, and if it runs out of bandwidth the entire tutorial is useless.

When will these kids grow up and realize using giant images is a really bad idea? Didn't they do any research before making their website? But to be fair, I see it mostly on forums. But it is still the owners fault for not discouraging the use of giant images.

This is a plea to all of you tutorial writers who insist on using giant images. Please, just stop. If you want to whore your tutorials around to every website out there, fine, but copy and paste it damnit. There is no need to make a giant image. Especially if you're trying to use a free image host for it. What happens when you run out of bandwidth? Your tutorial is 100% useless. If you use small images for the screen shots and they run out of bandwidth, people can still read the text!

If you're some one who writes tutorials in giant images, please let me know your reason why. It can't possibly be that much easier. The only time you save is in saving and uploading the screen shot images.

So please, from all of the forum owners out there, don't use giant images for your tutorials.

[AnDy89]

ironic, when the "kids grow up", who would want to learn from a kid?

Anyway it is a LOT easier to back up a tutorial when its an image, rather than a lot. Also if you are clever you can make the 1 image smaller than the possible 10.

[Donna]

Personally I dislike them myself most are so friggin huge in file size and half I cannot even read because of the stupid pixel and multi fonts they add on, I do upload the ones on Pixel2life Forums that sit on free image hosts (when I remember too) because yes they do die and very quickly. Someone posted a tut here yesterday I had no sooner saved the image and the site was out of bandwidth, it was on P2L Forums for all of 5minutes. Most just use them for personal advertizements as their site is usually in huge text on them.

Am not sure why everyone is starting to do this, if its anti rip reasons forget it as your wasting your time.

Another one is video tutorials and I read a comment from another site the other day, a lot of people cannot even view these especially dial up users waiting for them to download. (Jay will argue with me here lol but pop onto dialup and see what the dialup users have to go through to see a video tut) I saw one the other day 47MB's another was huge was no explanation at all just some song playing

And for those unaware we do have multi image upload here on Pixel2life, so take advantage of it.

[Jaymz]

I hate those huge image tutorials, and refuse to view them. If they're looking for an audience, they've lost it. I don't have time to sit and wait for the image to load, because with text at least it loads and I can read the text while I'm waiting for the images... with one giant image it's pointless.

[Ghost]

LoL...Seems like almost everyone hates them. I made a topic about this on my site aswell (here) and it looks like everyone hates them on my site too

[funkysoul]

I don't hate them neccesarily, but it's just a pain to read those tuts, nowadays every "kid" uses those damn pixelfonts, which you need some pair of glasses to be able to read it...

That tut can be as good as possible I WILL SKIP IT!

[Tasha]

Bah, I've used huge images once or twice, but that was because of uploading to deviantART, I couldn't really do it any other way, and I didn't have much webspace then. But at least I didn't use pixel fonts. Damn they annoy me so bad. I now make my tutorials with single images and text, so much easier to read through and recreate if you need to. The huge images that are hosted off free image hosts are just stupid, because as said, sooner or later they won't work anymore because of bandwidth.

[SKETCHi]

Slow loading is obviously a huge problem with these, but do the website owners realize that search engines pick up text better than images? Using text is key to getting a good search rank.

Also, if they want to advertise their websites a text link in their signature is far greater than plastering their URL all over the tutorial image.

To AnDy89: It doesn't take much more time to copy/paste the text in to notepad. You can save all the images and the text doc in the same folder.

[slack3r08]

Well i think they do it for Copyright or something.. but i personally HATE those tutorials.. specially when i'm trying to view one on a 56k connection.

I agree with SKETCHi they should encourage the use of normal text tutorials with separate screen shots .. it would be so much better !!

[BeaverElfeater]

the primary reason they do it is so when they put it on forums they dont have to do all that code they just have to put image tags and thats it

[ThaBirdman]

Some people who do image tutorials (at least, the good ones) do it for sites like DeviantArt so they can submit them as resources, but that is only because there is no other option. For forums and such its just annoying and probably (like beaver said) just out of laziness

[Ghost]

That doesnt make sense though, because it would take so much longer to make the tutorial as an image and post it around different sites than it would to just copy/paste text and change a few codes

[Vouksh]

Man I hate those things. My friend did most of his photoshop tutorials that way and posted them on my site. I refused to host them. And now he deleted them, and I have to go through and remove all the photoshop tutorials. dangit!

[SKETCHi]

I know how you feel Vouksh. It's slowly becoming a problem at my community. It has gotten to the point that I have had to add it to the list of rules in my tutorial guidelines.

It's mainly those people who whore their tutorials around to each forum they find, which is another thing that bothers me. I'm happy that they submitted the content, but I can't exactly submit them to indexing sites like Pixel2Life.

Anyway, I hope this thread gets out to those guys who are writing them. That way they can see how website and forum owners actually feel about them.

Oh, and feel free to donate to the "keep tutorials off giant images" foundation. You can send the money to me via Paypal or a personal check. I will be accepting all major credit cards soon!

[coolaid]

they do it cause there lazy... all you lazy cliche tutorial writers out there need to go to buy some patience at wallmart (they sell everything)

[Phazon Eater]

The only reasonable uses I can see out of them are people posting them on DevArt. I did that once, but I also linked to the text version of the tutorial in the description.

Really, they don't bother me since I have good Internet connection, but I think they are just a bad idea in general...

As for videos, I actually like them, especially when they have good explanations. It helps me see everything going on. What I don't like though is when unecessary elements are added to videos making them huge, or when people don't bother compressing their videos made with Camtasia...

[l3lueMage]

I was going to make a full image thing, but 1. Dial up users, 2. Takes too much time, I would prefer to have white background, cheap font and good tutorial instead of spending 80% of the time setting up the image to look cool and be over 2MB

[c-c-C-C-UNIT]

Here's what somebody said when I asked them -

it's easy for the people who makes them instead of just posting an image then typing the description they can just copy/paste then type it there and when they post it, they jost post the whole image instead.... a shorter way of posting..

Didn't really make sense to me, lol.