Thoughts on why JPEG artifacts suck for our biz...
 

If you've ever bothered to notice -- compressed .JPEG images make models look older! That's because of compression artifacts -- (those little squigly lines around the models face, lips, etc...) -- these artifacts make chicks look a lot older and more nasty than they really are... Women have soft skin and often .JPEG will give the opposite impression. What really sux is when a surfer is looking at a hot teen gallery and the model looks like she's 30 because of JPEG artifacts... It's just too bad that .JPEG is the standard -- I would think that there are better compression algorithms that would be suited to our business of presenting soft looking images... I know -- it's not a big deal because bandwidth is cheap as hell now -- but I would tend to think that highly compressed images sell memberships better -- if it weren't for artifacts that looked like age-lines then I think everyone would be more happy...

One way to help -- model images compress better if photographers don't apply sharpening filters... A lot of digital cameras today have sharpening algorithms hard-wired into the image processing chip -- so I'd say keep that in mind when you buy a digital camera or all your images will have that shitty "artifact look" after web compression. Sharpened images create a line around the model -- and this is bad for JPEG since it produces artifacts mostly on linear elements (same reason why you use .GIF for fonts instead of .JPEG). Also if your pics aren't grainy before compression they will look better -- boosting saturation or contrast incorrectly in Photoshop will add unsightly grain... :glugglug

Here's a perfect example of an over-sharpened over-compressed image that would compress better w/o the sharpening... You can see how the sharpening has produced a "double" line/edge that follows her contour -- this doubled-edge produces even worse .JPEG artifacts... My bet is that a sharpening filter was applied in the camera so there's really not much you can do about it other than get a different camera...

<img src="http://onewomanshow.stars-inside.com/tgpone/alexandra/alexandra02.jpg">

Depends on the surfer... some collect hi-res type images, have broadband connections and don't care how big the file sizes are. In my niche (celebrity) we have pictures as big as 2MB and people just eat them up. Good thing bandwidth is cheap :)

For the average join-and-jerk surfer, though, big images with longer loading times can take away sales. You have to strike a balance for the masses between quality and size in much the same way paysite tours are designed.

Much more important things to worry about than other peoples inability to process images.

Hell the worst 'theirs' looks, the better mine do.

Fuck em.

Dude-

I don't think that a surfer that is pounding his meat really even thinks about how grainy the pic is :1orglaugh But I might be wrong, you could always switch to a tiff :)


Tim
:Graucho

true that

From high end digital camera images (Canon EOS 1D) that I use, yes there is good sharpening in the image already, so no need to sharpen in Photoshop that much. I just resize them down for what I need. Actually I think the problem with Jpegs is more with the designer. Many people aren't as good at Photoshop as they think they are and don't know how to properly compress Jpegs for the web. I tweak depending on the image and I rarely go below the 7-medium setting.

Using the 7 setting isnt 'compressing for web'

:winkwink:

Oh, and I forgot...some people don't realize that resaving a jpeg as a jpeg degrades image quality even more. Never save a jpeg more than once.

i fucked her.

Her face really does look like that.

She's all used up.

I guess it depends what it's for...for a gallery I guess I'd go less. But my paysite images are about 600x800 and with the 7 setting I get really good images with no artifacts at about 70k-90k depending on complexity of image.

No, the image setting type is not a compression, just a 'quality' measurement. At least thats how I look at it as...

'Save for web' is more of the compression tool.

'Many people aren't as good at Photoshop as they think they are and don't know how to properly compress Jpegs for the web.'

hehehe

I think its crappy programs to blame not the jpg format. I currently use two programs that can compress an image into 30kb without many noticeable artifacts but in the past I?ve used programs that compressed images down to 40kb and it looked like someone corrupted the image the artifacts were so awful.

Jpeg is a lot like MP3, there are certain programs that compress to 128kbps and you can hear noticeable sound artifacts whereas the high-end encoders that take much, much longer to encode files can get away with almost none.

C'mon man. Photoshop added that "save for web" option just to make it easier to do what people were already doing with the quality slider. They're the same thing! Go play with the slider and in real time you can see the compression (more/less artifacts) in the image and the final size decrease or increase. Save for web is just a little more intuitive for web designers cause u can play with color profiles and compare gif to jpeg and more options. But the original way is all you really could use prior to PS 6.0.

I get better looking jpegs and lower sized files with Save For web.

Not my fault youre hooked in old ways.

Upgrade

:winkwink:

:thumbsup Finally someone noticed. I've been wondering why so many designers use low quality jpgs! I never understood it. They could have the most excellent design ever but the low-qual jpg-iness of it will still annoy the hell out of me.

You'll never catch me with jpg artifacts, no sir! :winkwink:

Whoever shot that pic (looks like a cheapo camera) and compressed it should be fired. Just my :2 cents:

Fletch XXX, actually save for the web does more than just compression... Usually when Photoshop saves files it attaches some useless info like formatting/preference/indexing information into the file... Then when you do "save for web" it strips out all all that but the vital image data... I don't know the exact JPEG specs, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works to get you 1k thumbs -- which is almost impossible if you don't use the "save for web" option.

That's an excellent point... I guess your programs are secret :)

http://www.digitaldutch.com/arles/
http://www.thumbnow.com/software/#ThumbNow

:thumbsup

The main reason 'save for the web' can very easily trash out pics is that by default it reduces the dpi from whatever (300-600 dpi) in the original to72 dpi in the output pic.

Who hasn't bought a photo CD with reasonably good lookin' sample pics online, only to discover that 5-10 % of them are 600 dpi on the CD. Reduce them to 72 dpi and they revert to their true size, just thumbnails. The dpi has been increased to make them look like a full sized image.