JPG Compression

Dead Webby · Post by **Dead Webby** » 05 Jun 2006 05:17 pm

Basically, neopets requires JPG or GIF images, and change my art to GIF the colouring goes horrible, and when I change it to JPG, it goes blurry round the lines and mouldy looking. Does anyone know how I can make it stop doing this when I save it?

Cheese · Post by **Cheese** » 05 Jun 2006 06:20 pm

What program are you using?

Shippinator Mandy · Post by **Shippinator Mandy** » 05 Jun 2006 08:15 pm

I don't know how to help, but I DO know that both GIF and JPG are just shitty file-types. I ALWAYS save as PNG...but if Neopets only accepts GIF and JPG (which, frankly, is just annoying), I guess you'll have to go with the lesser of two evils.

Sorry that this post probably wasn't that helpful...

Cheese · Post by **Cheese** » 05 Jun 2006 08:31 pm

But PNG doesn't have very efficient file compression. It's better than bitmaps without losing quality, but the files are still quite large in comparison to the same picture as a higher quality jpeg.

Twisted · Post by **Twisted** » 05 Jun 2006 08:41 pm

If you're using PSP there's a handy dandy little tool called JPEG Converter which can help save nice JPEG-and you can edit the quality to rather good quality. I usually save in JPEG this way ^^ (though having traditional art doesn't help)
But if I am making graphics I save in PNG. Though htey're large they're better than saving things in GIF. But apparently PSP X can save GIF format really well.

Dead Webby · Post by **Dead Webby** » 05 Jun 2006 08:47 pm

I tend to save in PNG when possible, too. I use ether MS Paint (icky, icky, icky) or Photoshop 5.0 (old, old, old). When changing the image format I use MS Paint even though it's awful- I don't know how to do that on Pohtoshop.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » 05 Jun 2006 08:59 pm

On Photoshop (I used to have 6, it was actually pretty decent), the compression shouldn't be too bad (on later versions, it works well). For photoshop, a GIF, I'd use save for web. Save as for anything else. Just change the format...

At least, that's how I think it should be. Instructions have never been my hot point.

Kralia · Post by **Kralia** » 05 Jun 2006 11:10 pm

The Gimp seems to do it pretty well but I only have Paint to compare it to so it's probably actually really bad.

Ziggy · Post by **Ziggy** » 06 Jun 2006 04:04 pm

I just use pngs. Never had an issue with them. Im really obsessive about cleanliness on my art though, I can't stand to work on something for 8 hours, getting each little pixel right, then having it all look shitty when its saved.
If I have to enter the BC or art gallery, I will have to use gifs or jpgs, but I put the png versions in my pets look-ups so people can see the original one if they want.

daisybell · Post by **daisybell** » 06 Jun 2006 05:10 pm

If you want a free program to change image formats, try XnView- Madge recommended it to me ages back, so credit to her. It's pretty easy to use, you can save in a lot of different formats and change the number of colours used for the gif compression and so on.

Get it here, I think.

Miguel · Post by **Miguel** » 06 Jun 2006 05:16 pm

<Geek>
From a technical viewpoint, here's some facts and my opinion:
GIF and PNG are lossless compression (the image you save is not altered in any way). The reason GIF messes with the colours is that you're only allowed 256 colours in the palette for the entire image, and most programs have lousy automatic palette pickers. PNG supports 24-bit colour and transparency.
JPEG, on the other hand, is lossy compression. The image is altered to fit various approximation functions. So the image you save and the image you load will be different - the latter will look worse. Over repeated save/modify/saves, sharp edges on a JPEG image become anti-aliased and less crisply defined. Also, higher compression leads to smaller file sizes, but to do this it uses worse approximation to use fewer functions (the mathemagicians here will know of Fast Fourier Transformations on a similar note). So if you must save as JPEG, find the option to do minimal comrpession and/or smoothing.

Therefore, to maintain absolute best quality, save in GIF or PNG (GIF for line drawings with few colours, PNG for anything). Keep original artwork in one of these two, or BMP or TIFF, as all of these are both well known and lossless. For that matter, BMP and TIFF don't compress the image at all. Think of PNG as a BMP in a ZIP file - you get the same file out, but it's compressed until you need it.

So if Neopets only accepts JPEG and GIF, either keep the original artwork and use a JPEG version, or alternatively you could use a slight hack: rename your PNG images to have the extension JPG, and upload them. They should pass Neopets filters, but will still be treated as PNG images by the browser (which look in the file to find out what it is, rather than the file extension).

</Geek>

Dead Webby · Post by **Dead Webby** » 07 Jun 2006 07:43 pm

Wow, thanks very much for that everyone. I think i'll try Miguels file extension tip and if that fails to work, i'll use the program Daisybell recommended.

Website · Post by **AngharadTy** » 07 Jun 2006 07:52 pm

I don't know if Photoshop 5 has the "save for web" feature, but it's what I always use. I wrote up a <a>tutorial</a> for it, actually. Hee.

Neocolours

JPG Compression

JPG Compression

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