Arctic Grille Cover on, How to create a good looking Avatar?

[houdel]

Installed an Arctic Grille Cover on my Deuce recently. Painted it with Krylon Camo paint to match my 3 color camo paint scheme. It doesn't seem to have too much effect on cooling with the radiator flap opened. Before I installed the cover, my temp gauge would vary between 160-170 degrees, depending on ambient temperature and how hard I was driving. The highest temp I have since is about 185 degrees, that is with ambient temperatures in the high 80s and after a good high speed drive (50-55 mph) but with no load in the truck.

I wanted to use photo 1 below to make a new avatar, but it came out pretty fuzzy. How do you folks with the sharp, crisp Avatars create them? I am using Microsoft Photo Editor, and my avatars suck. They look like digital camo, all the details are gone. See the samples below, picture 1 is my original photo, picture 2 is picture 1 downsized to 160 pixels wide and then re-elarged to the original size. What photo editor are you guys with the sharp looking, crisp avatars using?

 

[mangus580]

RE: Arctic Gill Cover on, How to create a gook looking Avata

Lee, if you have windows XP, download the image sizing utility mentioned in the tips & tricks forum. Use that to resize your pic to 160x160 on the custom setting.

 

[houdel]

Thanks, Mike. Better, but still not as sharp as I'd like. Seems to me I should be able to read the bumper numbers in the Avatar. MS Photo editor gave me a 5 kb file at 160x120 pixels, the XP resizer gave me a 12 kb file at 160x120 pixels. The avatar size limit is 63 kb at 160x160 pixels, so I am losing detail someplace. Maybe I'll load up Adobe Photo Editor and play with that for a while.

 

[jodka]

If the image is cropped before it is scaled then the truck itself occupies more of the frame. Examples attached.

I like the background, the original image is nicely composed, but the 160 x 160 pixel constraint imposes a tradeoff between more background or a larger and clearer truck.

 

[ken]

If your truck is running that cold you might check the thermostat. It should run about 195.

 

[houdel]

Jodka - Thanks for the neat avatar! At least I can now read the bumper numbers, even if you did crop off the tip of my exhaust pipe. What software did you use? It still seems we are giving up a little detail, as your pic is 30 kb vs the 63 kb limit for an avatar.

Ken, I hate to disagree with you, but 195 degrees would rarely be seen unless you are running hard and heavy in a very hot ambient. The milspec themostat is only 160 degrees, aftermarket replacements are 180 degrees, and the Deuce is overcooled. Without the grille cover I seldom see 170 degrees. Deuces should very seldom see 195 degrees unless something is wrong or they are really working hard.

 

[Westech]

I have a BRAND NEW T-stat in my truck ant the only way i could ever get it past 185 was when I broke the fan and had to remove it and I was pulling down trees when it was way over 100* out. Then i could get it up to 200* but as soon as I removed the hood and sides 180* was it!!

 

[jodka]

Ok, the problem with the cropped exhaust stack is fixed . I used iPhoto on a Mac.

Comparisons of how close the avatar image file size is to the limit are not a useful indication of image quality. The size in bytes of the cropped and scaled avatar image is determined predominantly by the 160x160 pixel limit, pixel depth of the original image and compression ratio of the file format. There seems to be a lot of headroom in that 63KB limit so that most avatar images at the best-possible quality won't approach the file size limit.

Hey, your location is the "West Coast of Michigan." I just returned on Wednesday from vacation, near Manistee and Onekama. I go up there every year. Nice part of the country, always wish I could have stayed longer.

 

[motorolanut]

Nice Ride!!

 

[ken]

Mabye it's the texas heat, 19,000 lbs of wet sand in the bed and a cranked up fuel rate that gets mine to 195deg.

 

[Dieselmec21]

I have been looking for a winter front, where can I find one?

 

[Armada]

I have been looking for a winter front, where can I find one?

Ebay has them.

Houdel, I like the camo paint on the grill cover, blends it right in.

 

[houdel]

Thanks all for the complements.

Dieselmech21, I got my cover off Ebay, cost me $25.19 plus shipping from seller vtcsm37. His name is George, phone number is 802-864-4762. Give him a call, he may have another, says he has a lot (two 40' trailers full) of M35 parts.

 

[Dieselmec21]

Thanks

 

[67Beast]

Hey, your location is the "West Coast of Michigan." I just returned on Wednesday from vacation, near Manistee and Onekama. I go up there every year. Nice part of the country, always wish I could have stayed longer.

Yep, and I'm just south of that at the Silver Lake Sand Dunes. Lee would have been just east and a little south of you in Manistee.

 

[jodka]

67Beast Wrote:

Yep, and I'm just south of that at the Silver Lake Sand Dunes. Lee would have been just east and a little south of you in Manistee.

67Beast - That's not far. Maybe I'll get in touch with you and Lee/houdel next summer when I am in the area again. Judging from the photos here, your restoration work on trucks is fantastic. I'd like to look and ask lots of questions if there is an opportunity for that and it's not an inconvenience.

 

[houdel]

Jodka - Click on Dave's (67Beast) links in his signature for more pics of his trucks. They are awesome. In another post, Dave said it took $1500 and six months of work (I think that is correct) to convert his truck from a near beater to what he has now. I don't know how he did that so cheap and so quickly! The M35 link shows the restoration from start to finish, very impressive! All he needs now is a spare tire!

 

[67Beast]

Jodka - Click on Dave's (67Beast) links in his signature for more pics of his trucks. They are awesome. In another post, Dave said it took $1500 and six months of work (I think that is correct) to convert his truck from a near beater to what he has now. I don't know how he did that so cheap and so quickly! The M35 link shows the restoration from start to finish, very impressive! All he needs now is a spare tire!

Actually Lee, it only took me 6 WEEKS to do the M35 resto. My M715 took 4 months to do, but that was a complete frame off resto where every nut and bolt came out and every piece of metal was stripped to bare.

Jodka, come on down next time. I always like to talk green iron with anyone.