Photo being compressed

[lizelmont Profile]

When I use this program to edit a photo it always compresses them on saving often from as high as a 15mb photo down to around 7mbs. I would like to prevent this happening as I need my photos saved at high resolution. I have the slider set to high on saving etc. Is there something else I need to do or is this just a drawback of Smart Photo Editor? It seems to make my photos smaller the more effects I add. Thanks.

[darrenp]

Hi there,

Many thanks for your post. What you are experiencing does sound a little strange. Are you saving the files as jpegs directly or as Photo Editor session files?

Thanks,

])arren.

[lizelmont Profile]

Hi thanks for replying

I open a file to edit in either raw or jpg. I apply various edits and then click on save. Just now I had a raw file at 26mbs open and when I saved it, it compressed the saved file to 3.42 mbs!!! Think thats the biggest change yet.

When I click save and the pop up box comes up I have the slider set at high (100) export size set at keep aspect ratio and preset set to 'original size' . I have just run through a new edit whilst typing this with a 22.4 mb file and it saved down to 3.16 mbs

What am I doing wrong?!

[lizelmont Profile]

Sorry saving as direct jpg, not save session

[darrenp]

HI lizelmont,

Thanks for your replies.

RAW files are 16bit and are therefore a lot larger in size than jpegs (and jpegs are inherently lossy). This would account for the reduction in filesize.

Try saving as a TIFF instead (which is 16bit and lossless). Let me know if you have any further problems.

])arren.

[lizelmont Profile]

ok I'll give that a go. Thanks for your help.

[lizelmont Profile]

Ok tried that. Gone to the opposite extreme! The TIFF files are saving as up to 97mb files!! All I wanted was to save, say, a 20mb file as a 20mb file lol I guess thats just not possible on here!

[darrenp]

Well the issue is that you're loading it in one format and saving it out in another so there is almost always going to be a (possibly significant) discrepancy between the two file sizes. :-)

One question: did you have 'lossless compression' set when you saved your tiff?

If this still doesn't resolve things, I'll take a look at the file myself (assuming you're happy to send it to me by personal message or some other means).

Thanks,

])arren.

[lizelmont Profile]

I tried lossless compression and uncompressed both seem to save as vast enormous files in TIFF format. Basically all I want is to be able to save any files I edit as reasonable sizes for printing out and enlarging. I don't particularly mind which format they are saved in although I prefer either RAW of JPEG. My best estimate is aiming for files of between 15 to 20 mbs depending obviously on the photo and camera used. I don't have enough storage space to save vast TIFF files but similarly don't want files compressed so small they cannot be printed out in sharp focus at larger sizes.

[admin]

Hi Lizelmont,

My recommendation is that you try using JPG at a reasonably high quality, then look at the results. If you're happy with the results, that's what counts, right? If you're not, then increase the quality. If you are still not happy, then use compressed tiff, as there is guaranteed to be no information thrown away, you are not going to get any better than that. Looking at the file size is not a good indicator, as that's really showing you how much entropy there is in the picture, a mathematical concept that is only indirectly related to image quality.

Tony