Matrix Listing Load is Live – And The Photos Look Great!

With Nancy Noland’s help I just tested the image quality available in Matrix (now that listing load is live) and I can confirm that it is vastly superior to the “old” MLS.  We replaced the original 320 x 240 pixel images with new ones that were 640 pixels wide by 426 pixels tall and BAM! – bigger images with less compression distortion and that retain their original dimensions.  This means that everyone using a digital SLR (and those that have me or another professional take their photos) will benefit from the full width of the image.  No more selecting center, left or right!  (There will be a small white band at the top and bottom of the image, which is acceptable I suppose.  I don’t think it’s that hard to program a photo “box” that dynamically re-sizes to the dimensions of any image.)

I suggest you consider resizing your photos to 640 x 480 pixels if you use a point and shoot camera (which has  4:3 ratio sensor) or 640 x 426 if you use a DSLR (which would typically have a 3:2 sensor) from this point forward.  (I’m told by the folks at Terrasoft that 640 pixels wide is the max.)  I would also consider re-loading images for any active listings you have out there with images at 320 x 240 pixels.

After seeing my images compressed to the point of being almost unrecognizable by the old MLS system, I’m a very happy guy today!