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How can I upload my photos to NorthstarMLS FASTER?
NorthstarMLS continually monitors its server environment to ensure it’s as efficient as possible and can process all data requests quickly. However, there are a number of reasons why uploading photos to the system can be a slow and frustrating process. Here are a few ways you may improve your experience.
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Optimize your photo before you upload. Today’s digital cameras can produce beautiful, high-resolution images. However, the benefits of this extra high resolution are noticeable mainly in print, not Web display. The higher the image resolution, the larger the file size and the longer it will take to upload to NorthstarMLS. NorthstarMLS will automatically optimize your file sizes before displaying the photos on the listing, but this happens as you upload, further slowing the process. Optimizing the image yourself before or after you take the picture can save significant time when you upload.
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Optimize before taking pictures. Check your camera’s user’s manual to learn how to set the image resolution. Set it to 640 x 480 pixels. This is the maximum resolution that can be displayed on NorthstarMLS. It will yield a very nice image quality but at a much smaller file size for faster uploading. Some cameras may have resolution settings such as “small,” “medium,” etc. instead of actual pixel dimensions. Experiment with these to see which works best.
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Optimize after taking pictures. If you also need to use the photos for print materials, 640 x 480 pixels resolution is probably too low. You may want to take both a high-resolution and low-resolution shot for each view. Or, if you prefer to take all of your pictures in high resolution, you can use special software to optimize copies for uploading to NorthstarMLS. Such software can also perform other useful functions, such as correcting for bad lighting, cropping the image or blurring out the “For Sale” sign you accidentally let into the shot. Most digital cameras come bundled with photo imaging software that will do this. Otherwise, you can obtain a program that meets your needs and budget. Here are links to just a few of the many that are out there:
Beginner Photo Editors
Free Photo Editors
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Check your Internet Service Provider’s Upload Speed. When promoting the speed of their service, most Internet Service Providers promote the download speed, i.e. the speed at which Web pages are downloaded from the Web and displayed on your screen. Upload speed is always at a much slower rate, especially for Cable and DSL connections. For example, cable modems are typically rated at 1.5 to 3Mbps download speed, but only 400 to 600Kbps upload—less than a third to one-fifth the speed of download. There is probably not much you can do about this unless you want to do some comparison shopping among Internet Service Providers. However, it’s an important concept to understand when evaluating your upload speeds to NorthstarMLS. There are a number of download and upload bandwidth tests available for free on the Internet, such as http://www.speedtest.net/.
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Check your Security/Privacy Settings. It’s possible that your Internet Explorer security and privacy settings are too high and interfering with your uploads. From the Internet Explorer Tools menu, select “Internet Options…” Click the Security tab. If you aren’t already at the default security level, click the “Set Default” or “Default Level” button. Do the same under the Privacy tab. Also, if you have any third party security software installed on your system, try disabling to see if that helps your upload speed. If it does, contact the security software’s technical support to see if it can be configured to work with NorthstarMLS photo uploads (so that you don’t have to disable it every time you want to upload a photo).