Currently, the files on my homepage are between 350 and 450 kb at 700x467 pixels.
I always used jpeg quality level 12.
Now this increases loading times, and you might lose an impatient client.
So I experimented, and using jpeg level 8 you couldn't really see a difference at 700x467. Even at 200% the difference was negligible.
With this compression level I could slim down my file sizes to 150 to 200 kb per file.
I wonder what other photographer's file sizes (and pixel dimensions) are for their professional home pages.
PS: All web images are 120 ppi, not 72, as many displays nowadays display up to 120 ppi (the new 27" iMac displays about 115 ppi, the older 24" at 110ppi). So I left the resolution at 120 ppi.
Using the PS Quality convention, usually between 7 and 9, though it seems that host responsiveness has at least as much to do with a broadband user's experience as does the actual file size (within reason of course).
Wilde One wrote: Currently, the files on my homepage are between 350 and 450 kb at 700x467 pixels.
I always used jpeg quality level 12.
Now this increases loading times, and you might lose an impatient client.
So I experimented, and using jpeg level 8 you couldn't really see a difference at 700x467. Even at 200% the difference was negligible.
With this compression level I could slim down my file sizes to 150 to 200 kb per file.
I wonder what other photographer's file sizes (and pixel dimensions) are for their professional home pages.
PS: All web images are 120 ppi, not 72, as many displays nowadays display up to 120 ppi (the new 27" iMac displays about 115 ppi, the older 24" at 110ppi). So I left the resolution at 120 ppi.
everything was going well until I read that part.
but for my web images, I usually set quality 7 for the JPGs.
mendesm wrote: everything was going well until I read that part.
SRB Photo wrote: BTW OP, no standard web browser cares what DPI images are at - a pixel gets treated as a pixel, just as things should always have been.
that's exactly where my comment came from, but I didn't want to send the thread in that direction
I save web images for size, not quality. I target most 800px wide images at 190KB which usually gets me a level 5 to 9 image. As bandwidth speeds increase every few years, I increase that number. This allows the user to download the images at a normal speed.
If the images ends up needing to be bigger due to the quality being too low at 190KB, then I increase it. Also, larger images (1680x1050 as on my web site) are saved much larger.
In a few years, I'm sure I'll be upping that number to 300KB or 500KB since we'll all have 45 Mbps to our house, right?
Another option is to "save for web" it basically strips all irrelevant info and the thumbnail of the image. You'd be amazed how much smaller your files can get without any additional loss of quality. Most of my images in my port are saved that way
you can look at the image in various stages of compression and do a comparison.
When I started posing pictures to the web a decade ago, I generally tried to keep file sizes down to 600 pixels on the long side and mo more than 75K.
Old habits die hard, but with the increase in monitor sizes, I now tend to post images with a maximum dimension of 900 pixels on the long side for horizontals and 750 pixels for verticals, and try to keep files under 150K.
I'd rather have my images load fast, as sometimes if a website hangs up, the viewer will just go elsewhere.
A lot of websites could be made to load faster if web designers would stop using the fancy visual toys because they can.
A fast way to turn a viewer off is to have one of those stupid "wait for website to load" flash wheels spinning on the screen.
Use simple HTML to allow what is important (your image) to load as fast as possible and don't ask a viewer to download a 10mb flash module before they get to see the fruits of your labors.
Each software package is different. I choose my jpeg compression by trying out the levels until I find the level that doesn't posterize anything in a variety of images. Deep swathes of sky are good place to look for posterization.
I have no idea if this is correct and it is "Old information"
I was taught that PC's read a web page at 92dpi and MAC's at 72?
Now that I am running CS4 and DreamweaverCS4 I have not been paying
attention to the settings in "Save for Web" I have also wondered for years
why a PC would take 92dpi and a MAC 72?
BCADULTART wrote: I have no idea if this is correct and it is "Old information"
I was taught that PC's read a web page at 92dpi and MAC's at 72?
Now that I am running CS4 and DreamweaverCS4 I have not been paying
attention to the settings in "Save for Web" I have also wondered for years
why a PC would take 92dpi and a MAC 72?
BCADULTART wrote: I have no idea if this is correct and it is "Old information"
I was taught that PC's read a web page at 92dpi and MAC's at 72?
Old information, and it was only really correct then in a specific context.
The default screen display setups were based on a whole bunch of assumptions, and were mostly valid when all those assumptions were true...which wasn't often.
In the case of web browsers, all the current 'commercial' browsers ignore display PPI settings and image DPI settings, and simply send the images to the display as-is. 1000 pixels will be displayed 1000 pixels wide, whether the display is 20,50,97, or 175.3 PPI, and whether the file is set to 10, 100, or 10000 DPI.
JPEG values, going back to the original question, are image-dependent. Images with lots of high-contrast edges (such as scans of typed documents) will both compress less and show more artifacting than images primarily of smooth tones. Photographs, even when they include signs and such, tend to be much more amenable to that form of compression, especially higher resolution files (files with more pixels, not necessarily higher DPI settings). Which isn't surprising, given that JPEG was designed for high resolution photographs, and not for 200-500 pixel wide images.
For web I use 400 X 600 Pixels and compress to between 8 and 10 on the lightroom scale - which goes to 12. Files are usually between 90 and 120K, so they load really fast.
Ken Marcus Studios wrote: Sometimes, small thumbnails will be saved as a 5
I was saving 50px thumbs at around there, but was seeing horrible artifacts on newer, very sharp LCD monitors. I use my standard compression for thumbs now.
