Seems when I work on an image in Raw by using the adjustment tool, after I save the image it is huge and I can't get it smaller than 700KB for NPN. what am I doing wrong. I go to image size-save as 1200 on the long side and save as jpg and it's still very large even if I go all the way down to 1 in image quality or even down to 700 on the long side, it's still too big?
Yes I do convert before doing any web and I did exactly what you said. First i did a 500 KB size for the larger image and when I uploaded, it was 506 KB so then I did a 200 KB and it came out at 206 KB what the ???? Also seemed like image quality very lost?
Posted by Jim DeWitt on August 8, 2010 at 11:13 PM
Cheryl -
The problem you are having is the difference between the logical size of the file and the physical size of the file. The tip Paul showed you saves to the logical size. Depending on your operating system, the size of your hard drive and other factors, the physical size may be a tad bit larger.
The easiest way to solve your size problem is to adjust the quality slider down by 1 (from 92 to 91 in Mark's excellent illustration). You can either type in the lower value or click on the blue triangle and use the slider.
See if that doesn't solve the size problem.
I can't speak to the quality problem without seeing an image showing the problem.
I have uploaded the full size jpg onto my site: http://naturelifeimages.zenfolio.com/p546211938/ha55ce6e#ha55ce6e . Quality is still not the greatest because of NR but still don't know why this problem occurs.
Posted by David Bostedo on August 9, 2010 at 5:41 PM
Cheryl - What software are you using? Can you post step by step what you're doing to prep the file AFTER RAW conversion? I don't like trying to re-size within the RAW software myself, although that's an option depending on what you're using.
You really should only have to :
-- Take a TIFF, PSD, or JPG
-- Resize to make the longest side 1200 pixels
-- Convert to sRGB
-- Save as a JPG and adjust the quality slider to get it under 500kB (for most images this means 5 or higher on the PS 12 scale).
All of the other stuff about save-for-web and optimizing will only make small improvements. If the steps above don't work, you've got other problems. That being said, noisier files can be much larger in size and need a lot more compression that cleaner files.
Thanks David. Ok first off i have had this problem occur only a handful of times and don't know why. Now as far as the raw thing. Ifirst open the images in Bridge then double click on it to open in Camera raw CS4.I used the adjustment tool ( farthest brush tool to the right of the tools) to lighten the bird a bit then maybe some vibrancy, contrast to the whole image with the contrast,vibrancy ... sliders.. I then click on open to get to Photoshop tweek some more ,add sharpening and NR. I then save as a tiff after the final tweaking . ( I always save the best ones as a tiff for my files.Then I resize using image size to 1200 on the large side for the larger image and save as a jpg NPN but when the image quality screen comes up with the scale up to 12 for the image I can't get it under 500 k even when I slide all the way to the left. This only happened to a few of my images and I have no clue why. It also happens when I try to size it 700 long for the smaller image and it is over 200K with the slider all the way left. Craziest thing. What the heck is happening?
Posted by Jim Erhardt on August 9, 2010 at 6:18 PM
Are you using the File > Save for Web function?
Posted by David Bostedo on August 9, 2010 at 6:40 PM
Jim - While that's useful for getting the best possible file size and quality, I don't think there should be any way to need to go down to a quality of 1 in order to meet the NPN file size.
It may be possible that there's something funny, and large, being stored with regard to color profiles or metadata that Save For Web would strip out, but I find that hard to believe.
Cheryl - Are you positive that you are actually doing the resizing and that you are saving it properly? Any other options selected while saving? Any chance you could send me a file that you're having problems with? I'll email you with my address if you can. I'd like to take a look.
Posted by Jim Erhardt on August 9, 2010 at 7:44 PM
On the Save for Web screen, even on the most detail-filled photos I have ever uploaded to NPN I rarely have to set the quality slider to less than 65 (where for web presentation the compression is hardly noticeable). The worst case I remember was right around 50, but compression becomes quite evident at that level.
I agree, it seems something else is going on with Cheryl's file.
I may be coming to a solution. Ahelpful member has sen the problem as well with my send image. This was his response. Anybody know how to correct it?
"Looking at your tanager shot in photoshop I see a lot of extra data in the EXIF when I select "file info" and look at the advanced tab. It looks like your CS4 is set up to embed a LOT of info that tracks all the edits you have done to the file, and I'm convinced this embedded EXIF is what is keeping you from compressing a jpeg under 200KB. I got the same surprising results you did when I tried to do a simple save - dragging the quality slider all the way to zero at the left end of the scale still couldn't get the file under 200KB. So then I tried "save for web" which deletes the EXIF data and I had no trouble saving a copy at 180KB (attached).
So, try to figure out how to turn off the CS4 feature that is saving all that unnecessary data in your processed file and you should be able to save images under the size limits as you used to be able to do."
Posted by David Bostedo on August 9, 2010 at 10:02 PM
Hi Cheryl - I have an explanation and a fix, but no real explanation for the root cause of the problem.
-- The issue is that the metadata for the file is 384 KB. This data isn't compressed by the JPG settings and just rides along with the file. So even if you got rid of the image information all together, you'd have a 384 KB file (that might not be exact, but close).
-- Looking at a bunch of my images, the metadata is usually about 5 KB - 20 KB, with th same information visible as yours.
-- Looking at your metadata in Bridge, I don't see anything weird off hand.
-- So I exported your metadata to an XMP file in Bridge (right click the image, select "File Info...", the "Export" and you can save the XMP metadata). That's where I see that it's a large file. Looking in the file (it's text) I see some odd lines - lots of them - but I don't really know XMP that well.
SO, the metadata is the problem. The ultimate solution is to not have such large metadata in the first place, but I'm not sure what's causing it. The work around is to get rid of the metadata. There are a couple of ways to do this that I got to work :
1) Open in a different editor and save as a different name. Then open in PS and do the usual resize/save as. This apparently fixes the metadata, because the file size drops and I can save in Photoshop properly.
2) Open in ACR from Bridge and save as a JPG. Then you can open it in PS and resize/save as, without issue. (In fact, the file size drops drastically at full res, even at highest quality in ACR, but I'm not sure why. The actual JPG algortihms Adobe uses aren't well documented.)
3) Use the "Save for Web" feature in PS, which seems to fix the metadata, even if you tell it to save all of it. (You can specify saving none of it to save a little bit more file size even, but you don't really need to in 99% of cases.)
3) Use the "File Info" field in Bridge to edit the metadata and delete everything out of the "Advanced" tab. I'm not sure why this works, as I have the same fields in my files without issue. Apparently somewhere in the Advanced info is where the issue lies though.
So there are several ways to fix this, but I'd like to know why the metadata gets so big to begin with. If I think of anything I'll let you know.
Anyone here have any ideas?
EDIT : And now I see someone else came to the same-ish conclusion. :)
Looks like I may have fixed the problem thanks to all of you. My metadata checklist had many checks on things I didn't need apparently making my file size bigger. I un checked alot of them and now uploading my usual way from PS with no problem. Who'da thought?
Posted by David Bostedo on August 10, 2010 at 8:36 PM
As I mentioned in email Cheryl, I'm glad that worked, but I'm still curious. I too have tons of things checked in Bridge, and don't see any ill effect, because those fields don't get filled with any info - so don't add to the metadata size.
I even have "Edit History" checked, which seemed to be related to your issue, and have never seen a problem.
It could be as simple as resetting Bridge to defaults by holding "Ctrl" while opening it. Sometimes things get corrupted, but this is a weird one.
Discussion
13 repliesSizing Tip
The problem you are having is the difference between the logical size of the file and the physical size of the file. The tip Paul showed you saves to the logical size. Depending on your operating system, the size of your hard drive and other factors, the physical size may be a tad bit larger.
The easiest way to solve your size problem is to adjust the quality slider down by 1 (from 92 to 91 in Mark's excellent illustration). You can either type in the lower value or click on the blue triangle and use the slider.
See if that doesn't solve the size problem.
I can't speak to the quality problem without seeing an image showing the problem.
You really should only have to :
-- Take a TIFF, PSD, or JPG
-- Resize to make the longest side 1200 pixels
-- Convert to sRGB
-- Save as a JPG and adjust the quality slider to get it under 500kB (for most images this means 5 or higher on the PS 12 scale).
All of the other stuff about save-for-web and optimizing will only make small improvements. If the steps above don't work, you've got other problems. That being said, noisier files can be much larger in size and need a lot more compression that cleaner files.
It may be possible that there's something funny, and large, being stored with regard to color profiles or metadata that Save For Web would strip out, but I find that hard to believe.
Cheryl - Are you positive that you are actually doing the resizing and that you are saving it properly? Any other options selected while saving? Any chance you could send me a file that you're having problems with? I'll email you with my address if you can. I'd like to take a look.
I agree, it seems something else is going on with Cheryl's file.
"Looking at your tanager shot in photoshop I see a lot of extra data in the EXIF when I select "file info" and look at the advanced tab. It looks like your CS4 is set up to embed a LOT of info that tracks all the edits you have done to the file, and I'm convinced this embedded EXIF is what is keeping you from compressing a jpeg under 200KB. I got the same surprising results you did when I tried to do a simple save - dragging the quality slider all the way to zero at the left end of the scale still couldn't get the file under 200KB. So then I tried "save for web" which deletes the EXIF data and I had no trouble saving a copy at 180KB (attached).
So, try to figure out how to turn off the CS4 feature that is saving all that unnecessary data in your processed file and you should be able to save images under the size limits as you used to be able to do."
-- The issue is that the metadata for the file is 384 KB. This data isn't compressed by the JPG settings and just rides along with the file. So even if you got rid of the image information all together, you'd have a 384 KB file (that might not be exact, but close).
-- Looking at a bunch of my images, the metadata is usually about 5 KB - 20 KB, with th same information visible as yours.
-- Looking at your metadata in Bridge, I don't see anything weird off hand.
-- So I exported your metadata to an XMP file in Bridge (right click the image, select "File Info...", the "Export" and you can save the XMP metadata). That's where I see that it's a large file. Looking in the file (it's text) I see some odd lines - lots of them - but I don't really know XMP that well.
SO, the metadata is the problem. The ultimate solution is to not have such large metadata in the first place, but I'm not sure what's causing it. The work around is to get rid of the metadata. There are a couple of ways to do this that I got to work :
1) Open in a different editor and save as a different name. Then open in PS and do the usual resize/save as. This apparently fixes the metadata, because the file size drops and I can save in Photoshop properly.
2) Open in ACR from Bridge and save as a JPG. Then you can open it in PS and resize/save as, without issue. (In fact, the file size drops drastically at full res, even at highest quality in ACR, but I'm not sure why. The actual JPG algortihms Adobe uses aren't well documented.)
3) Use the "Save for Web" feature in PS, which seems to fix the metadata, even if you tell it to save all of it. (You can specify saving none of it to save a little bit more file size even, but you don't really need to in 99% of cases.)
3) Use the "File Info" field in Bridge to edit the metadata and delete everything out of the "Advanced" tab. I'm not sure why this works, as I have the same fields in my files without issue. Apparently somewhere in the Advanced info is where the issue lies though.
So there are several ways to fix this, but I'd like to know why the metadata gets so big to begin with. If I think of anything I'll let you know.
Anyone here have any ideas?
EDIT : And now I see someone else came to the same-ish conclusion. :)
I even have "Edit History" checked, which seemed to be related to your issue, and have never seen a problem.
It could be as simple as resetting Bridge to defaults by holding "Ctrl" while opening it. Sometimes things get corrupted, but this is a weird one.