sizing down screenshots

R
Posted By
rdoyle720
Aug 24, 2006
Views
244
Replies
6
Status
Closed
I’m not sure this is the right forum, but Photoshop is where I encountered this issue.

I’m working on the project where I need several screenshots of a web application. Taking the screenshots as pngs, I then sized them down in Photoshop. I was surprised to see that this essentially doubled their file size. This apparently has something to do with resampling the image, because using "Nearest Neighbor" over "Bicubic" decreases the file size, but ends up with a crappy result.

Is there anything else I can do in Photoshop to size down screenshots, still keep good quality and not increase (and hopefully reduce) the file size? If not, does anyone know of other tools or screen capture software that would help me with this issue?

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

AC
Art Campbell
Aug 24, 2006
First, if you’re going to do very many of these, like more than 3 or 4, get SnagIt or a similar screen capture utility that does tricks with this kind of image. Highly recommended. Also, if the web app scrolls, SnagIt can capture the entire window…

Second, if you want to use PS, I’d do a capture using the PrtScrn (or Alt+) key to get the desktop or active window on the clipboard and then paste into a new .PSD file. Do the tweaking on the .PSD, including the resize, and then save out as .PNG.

Cheers,
Art
R
rdoyle720
Aug 24, 2006
Thanks for the tips. I’m already using SnagIt. Regardless of whether I use SnagIt or Photoshop, saving the full size image as a png gets me a smaller file size than sizing down and then saving as png or jpeg, which is what I’m trying to get around. Know of a way to fix that?
P
Phosphor
Aug 24, 2006
Is this project for web or print?
R
rdoyle720
Aug 24, 2006
Web. It’s actually going into a Flash piece.
CC
Conrad_Chavez
Aug 24, 2006
Here’s a theory…

What kind of PNG is the original screen capture? I am guessing that it’s an 8-bit indexed-color PNG. When you resize it in Photoshop, you are asking Photoshop to crunch several pixels into one. Depending on what colors were in the original pixels, that one resulting pixel may not match any existing colors in the current color table, so Photoshop may now be working in full (unindexed) RGB. That alone makes the file size bigger because the colors are no longer restricted to a limited table. With Nearest Neighbor, it simply uses the existing colors.

Try resizing down in a way that looks good, then export it as an indexed PNG and see if that brings the size back down into the range of the original.
R
rdoyle720
Aug 24, 2006
The original screenshots are 24 bit PNG, as well as what I save them as. The interface for this web app contains a lot of color and gradients, so although saving the final product as a 8 bit PNG would help the file size, the final product looks pretty junky.

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections