PNG in KF8 yet?

[Quoth]

It would be silly to have to put a QR code to a web site, but 4" to 6" eink users might like that to view a large colour image on their 8" to 12" tablet.

I've tested QR codes in ebooks on DXG, Kindle Keyboard 3 (mobi) and PW3 (azw3) as well as Kobos with my small phone and 10" tablet. Also works on paper version which is only going to have mono.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Another.

However often I can only easily buy ebooks from Amazon. However I don't read them on a kindle or App. As you know I use Content and Devices and download to PC for USB.

I'll likely cease buying from Amazon if that stops working.

You could buy eBooks from eBook.com. They use PayPal. I've traveled there and used PayPal. Worked no problem. I've also traveled with Kobo and bought eBooks. That I did via credit card.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It would be silly to have to put a QR code to a web site, but 4" to 6" eink users might like that to view a large colour image on their 8" to 12" tablet.

I've tested QR codes in ebooks on DXG, Kindle Keyboard 3 (mobi) and PW3 (azw3) as well as Kobos with my small phone and 10" tablet. Also works on paper version which is only going to have mono.

Now that’s an idea. We do put the illustrations on the website, so I’ll have to think about inserting a QR code. Still doesn’t excuse what Amazon is doing, of course.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Hopefully you can share whatever you find out from your contact.

----

I have done some more research and found something interesting. One of the books I purchased from Amazon, Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, has a map near the beginning that I found to be very readable when zoomed in on my Kindle Oasis, unlike the maps in the Brandon Sanderson books I examined recently.

I looked into the files Amazon delivered to my Kindle and found something different. In that book there is a copy of the map that is a not very readable 81KB JPEG-XR file with 852x632 pixels. But there is a second copy of the same map which is a 2.4MB JPEG file with 2300x1702 pixels. That is the one that is apparently being used on my Kindle.

The metadata for that book indicates that it has "yj_hdv", which is short for Yellow Jersey (Amazon's internal code name for Enhanced Typesetting/KFX format) High Definition Visuals.

This raises some questions. Why does this book, and a few others I have found, get this special handling? And is there something publishers can do to make these higher quality images available for their books?

I’m wondering: is the full jpeg in grayscale or color? Maybe the colorspace of the original file affects how it gets treated for e-ink devices?

I’ll ask my contact if I can share anything, but with the holiday it could be a while.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You could buy eBooks from eBook.com. They use PayPal. I've traveled there and used PayPal. Worked no problem. I've also traveled with Kobo and bought eBooks. That I did via credit card.

So far the book either becomes unavailable when I Add to Basket (No doubt USA only), or it's 30% more to twice as more expensive. I'll try again next time I want something specific.

I see that Kobo bookshop can find the edition for my region with one click. Amazon and ebooks might have it but you need to search more. Amazon UK is particularly broken search now.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Peter Ahlstrom

I’m wondering: is the full jpeg in grayscale or color? Maybe the colorspace of the original file affects how it gets treated for e-ink devices?

I've not seen Amazon do anything to color, but maybe something triggers additional processing. OTOH we've only got small illustrations and only any in earlier titles.
Some readers of SF or F or Detective do like the maps.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Peter Ahlstrom

I’m wondering: is the full jpeg in grayscale or color? Maybe the colorspace of the original file affects how it gets treated for e-ink devices?

I’ll ask my contact if I can share anything, but with the holiday it could be a while.

If s/he even knows. No aspersions on your pal, at all, but we all know far too well that up there, it's left-hand/right-hand around this stuff. I can not tell you how many times I would get completely contradictory and flatly wrong information out of ECR or one of the tech groups. I mean, even when you send files back, etc. PROVING that what they are telling you is a load of Dirty Old Socks, you get the same crap back.

It's frustrating as hell. Yes, I know, proprietary, their stuff... but DAMN, would it be too much for them to at least try to give out some proper info?

To me, it looks like they clearly have triggers in there, sort of media-queries that aren't, and they're displaying the high-rez on the "right" devices, but...if we don't know what drives that, we're all just flailing around and possibly overstuffing the goose.

Hitch

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by jhowell

My Oasis screen is 1264x1680 pixels and the maps in this book are meant to be shown as a full page. I can't think of a good reason for Amazon to have butchered them in this way.



I hadn't noticed this extreme level of image processing before either. Perhaps it is something fairly new or just uncommon.

My working hypothesis is that it was triggered by publishing those maps using large, detailed GIF images. If I am right about that the decision of whether to use GIF or PNG or JPEG may end up being important.

Maybe not.

A couple of my ebooks that I previously bought from amazon with maps of disappointing resolution are low priced as EPUB at the moment, so I bought them to check their illustrations. They are the Simon & Schuster Maude translation of War and Peace and Marcus Agrippa by Lindsay Powell. The former is 99 cents, its regular price, but sometimes it is a freebie. The latter is $2.99 at amazon and kobo but is $19.99 at ebooks.com

Any way, all the images in both EPUBs are JPEG. Except for some probably dual page images, none are more than slightly larger than an Oasis 2 or 3 screen (a bit longer in the long dimension and a bit shorter in the short dimension). Images from the azw3 that are on the order of 1100x1800 or larger in the EPUBS are shrunk to 55% to 75% in dimension and JPEG compression cranked up enough to cause significant artifacts in and near text, sometimes degrading readability as much or more than dimensional resolution loss. Color photographs on the order of 600x1100 or smaller retain their resolution but are very heavily compressed compared to the color photographs from the EPUBS.

I'm not set up to look into whether KFX versions downloaded directly to an Oasis over cellular/wifi escape dimension shinking without spending a lot of time and effort. But it looks to me like GIF is not the trigger for dimension shrinking.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I've not seen Amazon do anything to color, but maybe something triggers additional processing. OTOH we've only got small illustrations and only any in earlier titles.
Some readers of SF or F or Detective do like the maps.

For azw3 color images they crank up compression, targeting 85KB or so.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Peter Ahlstrom

Now that’s an idea. We do put the illustrations on the website, so I’ll have to think about inserting a QR code. Still doesn’t excuse what Amazon is doing, of course.

I think it is great when authors/publishers put clean hi-res maps and other illustrations on the web and also agree that doesn't relieve amazon of responsibility to not degrade images so much they look bad or are unreadable on their e-ink devices. 7 inch kindles have been out for over 5 years. The images must be really awful on Scribes if they don't get better resolutiom and fewer artifacts.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I'm not set up to look into whether KFX versions downloaded directly to an Oasis over cellular/wifi escape dimension shinking without spending a lot of time and effort. But it looks to me like GIF is not the trigger for dimension shrinking.

I agree. That was a hypothesis based on the first book I looked closely at. Based on further evidence the problem of overly compressed images in KFX on Kindles appears to be unrelated to the image format used by the publisher.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I agree. That was a hypothesis based on the first book I looked closely at. Based on further evidence the problem of overly compressed images in KFX on Kindles appears to be unrelated to the image format used by the publisher.

Thanks, I put myself out on thin ice by not checking KFX.

I hope a Scribe owner checks whether Scribes are given higher resolution and lets us know the results.

I've personally decided to switch to buying the EPUB version of illustrated books and converting to KF8. The WordDumb plugin makes better Xrays than amazon anyway, so I no longer see any compelling (to me) reason to buy ebooks from amazon.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

So. I've just spent a few days optimizing a new book for putting it on KDP. Got it down to a 7.5 MB epub.

I ran it through Kindle Previewer and saved the kpf file. Then I used jhowell's Calibre plugin KFX Import to extract the resources on the command line. And (without the embedded epub file) it's 32.4 MB. Is that an at all accurate predictor of what file size will be delivered to customers?

All of my carefully optimized gif files were changed to jpegs. The dimensions did not change, but the size ballooned. My biggest gif (the title page), 281 KB, became a 1.6 MB jpeg.

My biggest chapter icon, 100 KB, turned into 875 KB. My smallest one, 10 KB, turned into 67 KB. And there are 64 chapters.

After doing this, I tried it again with the regular ePub file that has pngs instead of gifs. The result was the same—all the pngs changed to huge jpegs.

I really hope this is not indicative of what the delivery size will be.

[j.p.s]

Everyone involved with digital images really really really needs to understand what a disaster in image quality and size happens when a JPEG is used when a PNG or GIF is more appropriate or a PNG or GIF is used when JPEG is more appropriate.

I hope you are able to convey that to your contact at amazon.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Peter Ahlstrom

I ran it through Kindle Previewer and saved the kpf file. Then I used jhowell's Calibre plugin KFX Import to extract the resources on the command line. And (without the embedded epub file) it's 32.4 MB. Is that an at all accurate predictor of what file size will be delivered to customers?

For each book Amazon produces a variety of Kindle formats customized in both text formatting and image quality for different Kindle reading platforms. There is no single size that is delivered to customers.

The quality of images also depends on the type of book being published. Amazon does a better job of handling images in comics and manga than they do for reflowable format books.

When you produce a KPF file using the Kindle Previewer the images in the book are handled by a program called KindleImageProcessor. When a book is actually published Amazon uses a different program, YJImageVariantGenerator, to produce the images that will be delivered to customers. What these programs do is undocumented and has changed over time. I suspect that what you get from unpacking a KPF will be similar to the KFX variant that customers using the Kindle for iOS and Android app will receive. I know of no way to see the true images that will be delivered to customers without actually publishing.

Originally Posted by Peter Ahlstrom

All of my carefully optimized gif files were changed to jpegs. The dimensions did not change, but the size ballooned. My biggest gif (the title page), 281 KB, became a 1.6 MB jpeg.

Unfortunately that is the way images are handled in KFX format. They are converted to JPEG for the Kindle apps and grayscale JPEG-XR for e-ink Kindle devices. They can be downscaled in pixels and reduced in quality.

Originally Posted by Peter Ahlstrom

I really hope this is not indicative of what the delivery size will be.

As far as I can tell the largest file size across all of the variants produced is shown as the file size on Amazon's product page for the book. Someone who has published may be able to comment on whether the file size on the product page is the same size used to calculate delivery costs.