How do "YOU" save quality photos in Photoshop?
 

I was looking for anyone to give away their secret on how they compress their photos for the best quality. Is there more than just ?Save for Web with about 70% quality?

Get unlead smart save pro :D

It seems like every shoot - set is a little different so if you are really that concerned... you need to experiment abit with each set. Save at different compressions and view them online.

Don't forget to check your logs to see what your surfers are viewing the web with... colorwise and rez. 32 million at 1024x768 are going to look radically different than 24 million at 800x600. Then go from there.

Thanks for the replies. I heard that web masters can get a 1Meg photo (800X600 and larger), down to like 50k give or take, using Photoshop without losing quality (still being able to call the photo ?High Resolution?). Does anyone know if this is true? Are they just using the ?Save for Web?s? slide quality slide ruler? Or is there a fancy trick?

I believe you mean ulead?

agree with ulead pro. just open it in there and save it at like 90% or something

Actually, in Photoshop, using Jpeg compression, you can go as low as 51% without losing too much quality. The difference between 51% and 90% is very slight. Now, if you drop it below 51%, you will notice a significant reduction in quality.

Just my :2 cents:

thanks toon. Do you think that is all they do or is there more to it?

Also, don't use colors if you don't need them.
Try to get away with as few colors as possible. Each color that is used adds more filesize when it is saved, because it increases the palette.

There are a few file optimizers out there, however, you can get close to the lowest filesize, just using Photoshop.

Thanks for your replies?Should I use ImageReady to compress my photos? Does anyone have a special technique in ImageReady to compress their photos that they can tell me?

Actually palletes only have meaning in 8 bit or lower images. The color depth determines how much information it takes to represent a single pixel of data.

Never use 32 bit unless you want transparencies, because a 32 bit image is still only using 24 bits of color information. The extra 8 bits are for an "alpha" channel for other stuff.

I tried some different things but I still haven?t really figured out how to get them down to 60k like some web masters out there. Can anyone else help out?

With ImageReady use the "Save Optimized" function, that can sometimes work wonders if you select the right settings...

Thanks stevo - Could you let me know what "right settings" you use?

Get SuperJPG from http://www.midnightblue.com

I swear by it. It'll batch compress and resize a folder full of pics in just a few seconds.
I take pics off of CD's and compress them at 80% and set the size to 500 pixels on the longest side (for free sites and such) and the file size is usually between 20-30K.