bummer, looks like sublime is changing format and script

[GeorgeTH]

Originally posted by Bill
George, what do you suggest to make 88thumbs? Photoshop is kinda cumbersome for it, and a bit of a resource hog.

Sorry - Bill!

I missed that question (like answering some emails) - just too busy!
I'm submitting to thumbnailed sites since August last year and in the beginning the traffic and the sign-ups were excellent (just ask Jim - he will remember from Flashcash)! Some have dropped me now in favour of paid listings and a few 'buddies', but in general when I get a listing I still get fairly high up the list - so my thumbs must be right

I make mine with Paintshop Pro (the discussion was on the the Knowledge board a while ago), for galleries mostly with 7, when I review always with 5 (already 4 had all functions I will describe) because it's very lean with easy to access screen capture - anyhow: both serve me fine!

I have been thinking about writing a small tutorial, mostly for my submitters since I get so many shitty thumbs, but never found the time. Here we go with a short version:
start with an uncompressed image from the set you bought, take a 'Selection' (I prefer rectangular, kinda easier) from a picture where the girl looks into the camera. With 'Hardcore' it's a little more difficult: some request action, some still want to see only the girl's face.
Next resize it so that you roughly get something like a passport photo (I usually resize to something like 92 pixels on the short length of my rectangle), then crop it to 88x88 (Paintshop has a function called "Canvas Size"; from the re-sized image I get a better idea where I have to drop some pixels, and Paintshop 7 leaves a slightly feathered edge from cutting, which is not good).
Never or hardly ever cut off the girl's chin - looks rather ugly - you can cut of a fair bit of her hair and upper forehead, the more of her face and less background the better!
My next steps are usually 'reduce GAMMA' to something like 88-94% (to archive a little more contrast), 'Adjust Brightness / Contrast' - contrast usually set to '3' (more looks terrible) and brightness depending on the image (3-8).
I go through these two steps (Gamma + Brightness) because when you resize a large image to such a small thumb you're losing a fair bit of contrast and they usually look too dark or dull (I make a 100x100 thumb for another site with lower settings - this little difference in size seems to make a huge difference in loss of contrast).
My final step and a little secret is 'Unsharp Mask' set to something like '0.70 Radius', '70% Strength' and 'Clipping between 10-16' to sharpen the image slightly - usually makes the eyes shine and, if she smiles, her teeth sparkle... Save with NO BLUR and around 15% compression - gives you a file size of ~3000 bytes.

Since I do this all the time most settings are pre-set (at least in Paintshop 5 which I don't use for much else), so it's only a question of pressing the right shortcut keys - it usually takes me 5 minutes to make 6 thumbs: 2x 88x88 (different requirements for different TGPs - LOL!), 2x 90x120 for another group of TGPs, 1x 100x100 for a friend's site, 1x 80x80 for one other particular site...

Have a look at my site - probably 70% of all thumbs were made by me!