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Silly question about image formats

wayne.e.kenneywayne.e.kenney Posts: 0
edited December 1969 in New Users

This is probably a stupid question, but when you export your rendered image then make a modification in Photoshop, would you export from Photoshop as png or jpg for best quality? And what exactly do the compression options mean? :

None / Fast
Smallest / Slow

Should I select none for better quality export if png?

Comments

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    If you are going to save your render from Photoshop to work on it again, to do something else say, then save it in PSD (Photoshop format) first of all, then you can save as PNG or JPEG depending on what you want to do with the image.

    PNG has an Alpha (Transparency) channel and is a lossless compression, so if you are using transparency, you need a format like PNG that has that capability. JPG is a 'lossy' compression, but it makes for much smaller file sizes. The amount of loss shouldn't be a factor if you load it into Photoshop, do some work, and save it out again, the filesize will be significantly smaller.

  • thelord_lord_1309ce8b11thelord_lord_1309ce8b11 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    "JimmyC " covered it all,


    I just wanted to notify you about the save for web in Photoshop "file -> save for web" this will allow you to know exactly the size of you image and its properties according to each type before saving it.

  • wayne.e.kenneywayne.e.kenney Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Thank you both! My question has been thoroughly answered.

  • TjebTjeb Posts: 507
    edited December 1969

    If it is complex work with layers, and want to work on it next time: yes native format: .psd
    If it is an simple modification I want to do: .bmp
    Image ready for posting (e.g. your gallery) .jpg

    In the jpg format you can include (not visible in the image itself) things like: tags, digital watermark, change exif data, etc...

  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232
    edited December 1969

    Another note, which might save some hair-tearing later: that mention of jpg being a "lossy" format. What you must remember is that it does this every time you save as jpg — stripping out already-stripped-out fine detail. Keep this up too long and you'll see "compression artifacts" usually in the form of halos around sharp light/dark edges, and faint (or not so faint) patterns of squares. You can see this occasionally in textures that have been too savagely compressed.

    This is why I never save as jpg until I'm sure I've done all the postwork I need to, and I always make sure I have a complete layered working copy of the same image just in case I turn out to be wrong.

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