Images being forcefully downsized upon upload & GIF being automatically converted to .webm on upload

First Problem: Whenever I upload an image the size gets significantly downgraded, as you can see in the images below... (The grid is 70x70 pixels per square) Second Problem: When I upload a .gif format animation to roll20, not only does it downsize it to unuseable proportions it also converts the file type to a .webm. Why is roll20 doing this? They say that this platform supports .gif, .mp4, and .webm file types but it doesn't really support the first two if it's automatically converting them to the third type, does it? Does anyone have this problem other than me?

This looks very similar to the process whereby uploaded jpegs are converted to pngs.

keithcurtis said: This looks very similar to the process whereby uploaded jpegs are converted to pngs. I can't say I'm familiar with that process. Is it an intentional one?

As to the first problem --- it's been an issue on Roll20 for years, since they changed to Drag-and-Dropping a graphic causes the graphic to appear resized in "Token" size automatically on-drop on Token layer, and there is no mechanism to cause it to appear in Original Size (resolution) on drop from Library or Purchases. You have to right-click the picture, go to Advanced > Set Dimensions > Pixel Size > then you need to know the original art size (like you said, 340x458) and you can set it to that. Otherwise you can just drag the image size-handles and resize it imperfectly. In either case, the good news: your "Original" size image is still retained in Roll20. It hasn't actually ruined your graphic file. It's just displaying it at reduced size to "help you" use it as a token, even if you wanted the native original size instead.

Also, if you don't want to re-size during actual gameplay (e.g. for a spell effect, terrain feature, large npc token), you can re-save the properly sized token as the Default Token for a character sheet ahead of time. It will preserve the size the next time you drag the "character" to the VTT.

Gifs are supported by dint of accepting them for drag/drop and converting them to an appropriate format, rather than requiring you to first convert them to the .webm format yourself. 

Roll20 uploads the same image multiple times, in different sizes. One version has the original size. Roll20 only loads the size that is needed for the current zoomlevel. If you click the token and press Z, the original version is opened. What are the dimensions of that image?

@Gold Thank you, this helped me to understand what was actually happening behind the scenes. @David M. This works, so I only have to resize them once which I hope will help to not slow down the game mid-session, though I wish it would work as a handout. @The Aaron Yeah that's apparent to me now, though the uploading process is mind-numbingly slow, I suppose beggars can't be choosers and I'm happy that it works at all. @Martijn S. This was a very helpful tip, thank you very much.