Expanded images in sidecar fuzzy

[Anonymous User]

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!

[OwenGeo]

@Anonymous UserI'm glad to hear the fix we deployed for the expanded image quality issue has addressed that problem for you.

Yes, the PNG issue is a back-end issue and should be fixed next week in the ArcGIS Online update. From what I've heard from them, it's possible that you may need to re-add the PNG to your story to fix the issue.

[katherine_evans]

Hi,

I have also been having an issue with blurry images. When I am in editing mode, the images look perfectly clear. However, when I change to view the story map (not in editing), the images appear blurry (see attached). If I click on the images, the image of course will enlarge. When I click again to have it go back to the original size it is no longer blurry (see attached). Anything you can do to help with this issue would be greatly appreciated.

[OwenGeo]

@katherine_evans -- This can sometimes happens if your screenshots are not large enough or not a high enough resolution. Even if they look clear in the builder the text might look blurry when viewing the story because the images are resized for performance reasons. If there isn't sufficient detail in the image, text may not look great.

Be sure you are using PNG format images (not JPG) and set your monitor to the highest resolution possible before taking screenshots that you intend to use in a story. In a few other cases where people reported this, this solution fixed the issue.

[katherine_evans]

Even though when you are viewing the story and click on the image, it corrects itself and is no longer blurry? Also these are not screen shots they were exported as jpeg. I could try exporting them all as png, do you think that would work? It seems weird that if this is the issue, the image will still correct itself when the image is clicked on when viewing the story.

[katherine_evans]

I tried png and it still didn't work

[OwenGeo]

@katherine_evans -- Could you ZIP up your original images and share them here so we can test things on our end?

[katherine_evans]

I have uploaded some files we were using, there is also a couple of PNG I tried (most are JPEG). Let me know if you need more files. Please note, I work for the state of Ga and these files are considered a draft right now. Please don't share. Thanks again for your help on this.

[OwenGeo]

@katherine_evans -- We looked into this and most of these images are compressed JPGs and don't look clear to me even in their original form.

The two PNGs you provided are the only images that are sufficient quality and format to use for images on the web with text. However, they are much larger than needed (3300px wide), so to ensure the images load quickly when readers view your story the builder has to resize them. This sometimes can have a slight effect on their appearance. In our testing, we do notice a slight difference between the original and how the image looks in a story, but the text is still clear. I'd recommend exporting the images at a size closer to 2000px wide, which will give you a result that should be closer to what you'd expect to see in the builder and provide clear text in the images.

Please also see this article which has some good information and tips on working with and preparing images for use in a story. A Guide to Working with Images in ArcGIS StoryMaps (esri.com)

[katherine_evans]

Thank you so much for taking a look at this, I will try your suggestions. Hope you have a great afternoon

[katherine_evans]

I tried the you suggestion and uploaded the images (PNG with 2000px), they are still blurry. the one on the left is clear, but only after I clicked on it to bring it to full screen, then clicked again to bring it back to the story map. The right I have not touched, but if I double clicked on it, it would probably clear up.