Gravatar auto-leveling

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  athairus · Member · Feb 6, 2015 at 9:14 pm

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  There seems to be some very annoying auto-leveling going on when I upload my Gravatar.

  Here is the original image: http://i.imgur.com/QbYr62g.png

  The light grey glow gets auto-leveled whenever I upload the image. I’d like to know if there is any way to upload images without this conversion being applied.

  I also have an old image still associated on my account from 2013 that looks correct. It was uploaded before this change was made and I haven’t touched the original since then. Here is what that exact same image looks like when it’s uploaded today, with the original file next to it for comparison:

  

  I’m not doing anything fancy with colorspaces or messing with the PNG format. These images are made on GIMP, but I’ve tried uploading PNGs saved with Paint.net and even Paint, same results.

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  timethief · Member · Feb 6, 2015 at 9:47 pm

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  Images should be saved in RGB mode, and you will see the best results if you use the sRGB color profile. http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/uploading-images/#troubleshooting

  As I don’t have anything else to offer I tagged this thread for a Staff response. Please subscribe to it so you are notified when they respond. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.

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  athairus · Member · Feb 6, 2015 at 9:49 pm

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  Thanks. I’d like to point out I’ve already tried saving the PNG with an sRGB profile, that didn’t affect anything.

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  timethief · Member · Feb 6, 2015 at 9:50 pm

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  You’re welcome and thanks for confirming that. Please be patient while waiting.

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  shawnajroberts · Member · Feb 7, 2015 at 6:10 pm

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  Hi there!

  I imagine the image is being autoleveled because Gravatar images are usually shown at such small dimensions. There’s no way to have this not happen.

  Sorry I can’t be more helpful! Let me know if you have any more questions!

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  athairus · Member · Feb 7, 2015 at 6:37 pm

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  Gravatar is the only site I’ve ever seen that does this. A simple checkbox that turns off auto-leveling would be the perfect solution. Why isn’t that implemented? I made my avatar to look legible at low resolutions. Auto-leveling isn’t needed! It makes it look worse!

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  shawnajroberts · Member · Feb 7, 2015 at 6:52 pm

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  I’m happy to add that as a suggestion, however updating Gravatar’s image uploading isn’t something that’s a high priority for our developers right now.