how to decrease kb size of photos

CP
Posted By
Chrystin Pleasants
Jul 5, 2003
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183
Replies
4
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Closed
I’ve RTFM but can’t seem to find the answer to this simple question (I think it’s simple maybe I’m wrong.) When I save a photo in Elements it always saves it with a minimum of about 75 KB. I can’t upload files that big to places I want to post these. I can’t find any thing that tells me how to make these less than 30 kb. I truly apologize if this is an amazingly stupid question, but I have looked hard for the answer and spent $$$ on manuals which have been of no assistance. And the help function doesn’t give me an answer I understand on this, either.
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P
Phosphor
Jul 5, 2003
Instead of creating jpgs using the "Save as" function, for files you are planning to upload, use the "save for web" feature. It makes much smaller files to begin with (no EXIF data, for one thing) and you can adjust the pixel dimensions there quite easily. Remember that a small monitor screen is only about 600 pixels or so across. If your photo is wider than that, some people will have to scroll to see it all. Just be sure that "constrain proportions" is checked.

Using save for web you can make a very small file for web use. HTH
B
Bernie
Jul 5, 2003
Try:
Save for Web, it will open a separate window with several options. I usually pick the 60 (quality) for jpg. This will bring the size down, they will be good for web work, but not good for print.

Ralph
<http://www.darkstar.us>
P
Phosphor
Jul 5, 2003
Chrystin,

Just a reminder, don’t save over your original photos.

That low a quality setting can introduce a lot of jpg artifacts into the image. If you overwrite the original files, you’ll not be happy should you ever want to do anything else with them. I’m sure you know that already.

Just out of curiosity, what are the pixel dimensions of the original photos?

Bob
B
BobHill
Jul 5, 2003
Chrystin,

Perhaps the easiest way to understand the relationship to image and filesize (discounting various formats and compression schemes) is to understand that all any raster image is, is a collection of pixels with each pixel having but one of 16,777,216 colors. RGB is 24bit which means that a RAW image is thus 3kb per pixel. Do the math. The more pixels, the higher the filesize in kb value. Thus the only way to physically make an image smaller in kbytes is to RESAMPLE the image and reduce the total number of pixels.

If you are looking for the filesize to just be smaller when storing it, then just use the compression format (JPEG, TIFF, GIF) and it’s available ratio which suits your needs. Just remember that JPEG is a "lossy" format in that each time you edit and Save a JPEG it loses color quality to the degree you set it’s compression ratio (but has the most compressable ability); TIFF uses LZW compression which has about 50 different types of algorithms and not always recognized by other programs (usually only use LZW compression on a TIFF for your personal use) but a TIFF is the best quality of all compressable image formats; and a GIF always is compressed when stored as it uses a standard, and freely available LZW compression (other LZW are not free and maker must pay for it’s use). GIF however is limited to 16bit color (256 colors), but with the GIF ability for "indexed" colors if you don’t try to spread the full color band of colors (which makes colors look like "paint by numbers"), gives a fair rendering of most images.

AND remember that you might compress the filesize of an image for storing, but when you again OPEN this image in ANY program, it’s again inflated to it’s IMAGE size in kbytes which is 3bytes per pixel. Storing and viewing sizes (plus format differences) are different.

Bob

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