Posting on NPN

Recently I switched from CS4 to CS6 and have encountered a problem when posting images to NPN. In CS4 if I posted a large image at say 1200 x 800 pixels and the file size exceeded to 500 KB I could change the percentage until I had the correct file size. I cannot do this in CS6, what am I missing.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

May

May - How are you trying to save your image? CS6 should have all the same save for web options, or regular save options. You should be able to change the quality setting of the JPG (that's what the percentage is) in order to reduce the file size. Maybe some more step-by-step details of what you're doing would help.

David, I downsize my images to either 720 or 1200 and then "Save for the Web". In CS4 I could change the percentage if the file size exceeded either 300 or 500 kb, but can't seem to find a way to do it now. They are JPEGs.
May

You can still do this in CS6. Make sure you have selected the "optimized" tab on the top left though, otherwise you wont see the destination file size. You can either select the dropdown button (to the right of the "preset" field) on the top right of the Save for Web dialog, then select "Optimize to file size...". Or you can use the quality slider to set the size.

Hope this helps.

Paul.

May,

Using Save for Web, you need to adjust the 'Quality' setting slider in the pane to the right of your displayed image to get the file size under 300 (for the 720px image) or under 500 (for the 1200px image). Note, I usually make the files sizes 295 KB and 1150 KB, respectively because there is usually some overhead added by whichever program you are using to upload (ftp or http) the image.

A couple of other notes:

1. Be sure to flatten your image and delete any alpha channels (Channels Palette) except for RGB, R, G, and B. This will make the file size smaller so that it doesn't have to compress so much. (flattening does not delete alpha channels)

2. Insure you have converted your image to sRGB. In the Save for Web dialog, check 'Optimized' and 'Embed Color Profile'.

--P

OK, I think I am making progress. On the top right hand side under PRESET there is a box which gives a choice of 'GIF, JPEG, PNG-8, PNG-24, WBNP. When I choose JPEG then it allows me to set the quality, then I can change that number and it changes the file size. My error was allowing it to automatically choose GIF which then would not let me change the size. Thanks so much for your help.

I have not checked "progressive", but I have checked optimized and embed color. And, I have also allowed it to convert to sRGB.

JPEG is the best choice, as they render images that fall withing the gamut of sRGB. GIF are limited to 256 colors so you would likely have noticed missing colors and/or banding.

--P

May: I'm using CS5 but suspect CS6 is similar. Here's a screen shot of where I am when getting ready to size my images for posting. When you click on "optimize to file size" you get a window that lets you specify 500kb for the larger version and then after downsizing to the standard posting dimension you go through the save for web process again and specify 300kb. Hope this helps.

May,

The Save for Web dialog in CS6 is the same as that shown in Bill's screen shot.

Note, that if you convert your image to sRGB before opening Save for Web, you should check Embed Color Profile and set Preview to "Use Document Profile".

--P