Expanded images in sidecar fuzzy

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11-19-2020 08:18 AM
by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Images in my sidecar are incredibly fuzzy/blurry. Is there a optimal workflow or image requirement when placing images in story maps? I have attached a video to show what I am seeing. The particular story map is my testing one so I cannot share it publicly, however, I can share it with a private group for troubleshooting purposes.

Thanks!

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OwenGeo
Esri Notable Contributor

@Anonymous User @KateMcMahon -- This issue will be addressed in an update coming later today. Please check your stories tomorrow and let us know if you are still seeing this issue.

Owen Evans
Lead Product Engineer | StoryMaps

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OwenGeo
Esri Notable Contributor

@cole_KTB -- Thanks for sharing your story link. The blurriness around the text in your story's images is caused by the fact that your original images are very low resolution. Looking at them they are only about 700px wide. I can see that the originals do not even have crisp text. When low-res images are resized to be even smaller, additional noise can be introduced. This may not make much of a difference in a photograph, but for a screenshot of a chart with small text there can be noticeable blurriness, especially around the small curved edges of text characters.

I'd recommend re-creating and re-uploading your chart images so they are at least 1200px wide (2000px or more would be best). For images with small text, like the images of charts in your story, be sure the images are at least 120 dpi.

For more information, see these best practices for image sizing in our FAQ: Frequently asked questions—ArcGIS StoryMaps | Documentation

Owen Evans
Lead Product Engineer | StoryMaps

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25 Replies
OwenGeo
Esri Notable Contributor

Hi @Anonymous User  -- Thanks for providing feedback about this image quality issue. Are those PNGs? There is currently an issue with the ArcGIS Online back-end with serving out PNG images. We've heard that this issue should be addressed in the update coming in mid-Dec.

If you convert your original images to JPGs, do you still see the same issue?

Owen Evans
Lead Product Engineer | StoryMaps
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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

The images are both JPG's and PNG's, I used both to show it didn't matter. The caption below says what they are.

The original images are from Excel and I've tried to convert them using Word, Affinity Photo, and MS paint. But when placed in sidecar and expanded they all look the same, very blurry.

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OwenGeo
Esri Notable Contributor

We can reproduce this issue. We'll look into this more and update this thread when we have additional info.

Owen Evans
Lead Product Engineer | StoryMaps
by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Thank you for your assistance and quick reply Owen.

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KateMcMahon
New Contributor

Hi Owen, I'd like to piggyback off of this same issue: we are having massive compression issues with images embedded in Sidecar in particular. When clicked to enlarge, nearly all of the images are compressed to the point of being illegible. This is a particular problem for us as we are showing archival manuscript documents with writing on them that are not legible at all. We have tried different file types and different sizes to see if that will help but nothing has. We are supposed to be launching our map in December and right now we cannot do that with it looking the way it does. Any update on this fix would be greatly appreciated. 

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OwenGeo
Esri Notable Contributor

@Anonymous User @KateMcMahon -- This issue will be addressed in an update coming later today. Please check your stories tomorrow and let us know if you are still seeing this issue.

Owen Evans
Lead Product Engineer | StoryMaps
KateMcMahon
New Contributor

Thanks so much for the quick turnaround! 

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Very cool, thank you Owen!

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Morning Owen,

Got a chance to try it out and it seems to have worked. Images are coming in crisp except for one PNG so far that doesn't show up until you expand it. But I think you said in a different post that the PNG issue will be resolved in the December update.

Problem is the issue of when you open builder it says there are unpublished changes right away without making any actual changes. I know this is similar to an old issue that was resolved a couple of months ago (see Image bug when opening builder ) but wondering if it is related to this patch. See attached video for better explanation.