Welsh

[lovingboth]

Last night, I ordered some Smilies (urgh) from the Royal Mail. They're real stamps with picture you upload attached.

It was a bit of a struggle. It says it wants a 'jpg, less than 700k in size, portrait'. OK, play around with the photo, upload...

'Actually, we also want it to be no larger than 366 pixels wide by 474 high.' (And no smaller than some other measurement I forget and can't look up because royalmail.com is down at the moment.)

OK, resize photo. Because the user-supplied picture part looks square to me, rather than round, I make sure it's cropped to be 366 x not-much-bigger-than-366-but-bigger-than-the-minimum-height.

'Sorry, that's not portrait format...' Yes it is, but give up and give it 366x474.

The online 'this is how much you need to pay' is in dollars(!) but the confirmation email is in pounds. I'm tempted to complain about this one.

What's this to do with Welsh? Well, at the bottom of the first 'thank you for registering' email is this:

Royal Mail Group plc is registered in England and Wales. Registered number 4138203. Registered office: 148 Old Street London EC1V 9HQ.

Mae Royal Mail Group ccc wedi'i gofrestru yng Nghymru a Lloegr. Rhif cofrestredig: 4138203. Swyddfa gofrestredig: 148 Old Street, LLUNDAIN, EC1V 9HQ

Note the way they've 'Welshed' London, but in the order confirmation email they have...

Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group plc. Registered number 4138203. Registered in England and Wales. Registered office at 148 Old Street London EC1V 9HQ.

Mae'r Post Brenhinol yn un o enwau masnachu Royal Mail Group ccc. Rhif cofrestredig 4138203. Cofrestrwyd yng Nghymru a Lloegr. Swyddfa gofrestredig yn 148 Old Street London EC1V 9HQ.

... with it in English! Consistency? Never heard of it...

Comments

[f-l-i-r-t.livejournal.com]

Ohh, you are a stickler... I ordered smilers, they are great fun, but they botched up my order. *grrr* I did two orders, two different pictures and two different stamps, why? Long story... anyway, they only used one picture on both and the picture came out looking sallow. You see, whatever colour is prominent in your stamp will slightly colourise your photo.

I am going to order another set, let's see what happens this time... perhaps it was just a bad day on their site, didn't notice the $ signs, maybe there web designer was on strike as well. *L*

[lovingboth]

What is the shape of the picture though - is it really 1:1.295?

Argh - you spend (ok, I spent) time adjusting the image to get rid of the effects of the camera flash, lighten the background to contrast more with the hair colour, make the shirt more like its real colour etc, and they just go 'oh, it's mostly grey, let's make it greyer'?!

[f-l-i-r-t.livejournal.com]

It has to do with the printing process, they don't adjust the photo, they just print it on same sheet with stamps and the colour saturation from stamps effects photo part.

Four colour printing (cmyk), which is full colour floods the printing plates, if they are doing traditionally, but probably aren't probably doing it digitally, so not sure what there excuse is. *L*

As for shape, don't remember... just did what they asked.