Using medium quality jpgs on the web should not be a problem. The resolution of the web is such that the high quality levels option is seldom needed. Look at comparisons … generally the artifacting problems don’t show up until well into the medium quality.
The other way to reduce file size is to reduce the size of the picture. Reducing a picture to 72% of its original size makes the pixel count 50% of the original, and file sizes will also be smaller.
Finally, a very few images save to smaller sizes as gif … generally ones with fewer colors and no gradients. Always check this type of pix as a gif to see its size.
Some people have had success in slicing an image and making a portion of it jpg, but where a large solid area appears, making that part a gif.
don’t forget the check in save for web… there’s an option to apply varuable compression via masking. so you can compress continuous tones highly, while leaving quality up there for parts that require detail.
Thank you for your input. I have indeed compared the images and the medium quality is not to my supervisor’s liking, and the images have to be a certain size we have no choice in that matter. I have never tried slicing before. How exactly do you do that? I tried playing with it but couldn’t figure it out. And I already knew about the .gif for fewer colors but I can’t use that for these images. These images are of garments with mufti-colors. And where is the masking tool in save for web?
Well, slicing is not really going to save you any space in total. What it can do is make a 100K image into 5 21K images. The total download time will actually be slightly higher (due to file overhead and handshaking protocol transmissions to start each file) but it will seem as though things are happening faster since each portion pops in as it arrives.
There really is no way to have it all: high quality, small file size and large image dimensions. You have to give on one of them.
Slicing is explained in the help files. Basically you use the slice tool in IR, then save for web. It creates an HTML table that has your slices in it. You put the table onto your page and the five jpgs on your server (in the correct location) and you are there.
Thank you! I’ve been trying to say that. I appreciate all your help! I’ll just have to play around with scenarios for everyone. To make everyone happy.
