Image quality reduction tutorial! HOO HAH!
DominusDeus
Posts: 993 ✭
Since the other thread obviouslly didn't go through correctly, LETS TRY THIS AGAIN!!!1one
How to reduce an image file size with SnagIT 7.1.1
And other neat things.
This tutorial is brought to you by DominusDeus,
and sponsored in part by the letters "T", "I", "R", "E", "D",
and the word "FINGERS".
SnagIT is available here for a free 30 day trial, after which, costs $39.95 to purchase. ( http://wcarchive.cdrom.com/pub/bws/bws_48/snagit.exe ). It’s 9.52 MB, so it will take a while to download if you’re on 56k (if you can hunt down version 5.1.1 (still costs money), it’s much smaller, and still excellent).
After you’ve installed it, obviously get rid of the nag screen (unless you’ve a serial number to put in), and get to the main SnagIT window. First, we’ll set up the basic settings.
First, since I’m used to version 5.1.1, click "View" then click "Classic Mode". Uncheck the box on the bottom left, and click "Yes".
This is the format I like to display settings:
Something | something | something something
The | represents menus. Example, if you were going to click "fitlers, then color depth, then halftone", I will display it as:
Filters | Color Depth Halftone
You can see, the first two are menus, the item after the is what you click. So lets set up the jpeg quality. For now, we’ll have the input to "window", so:
Input Window
By default, on the Output menu, "file" and "preview" will be already selected, so:
Output Properties Image File tab
Under the File Format section, select JPEG, then click Options.
On the File Format Options box, for "Colors", leave it at Automatic. For "Subfile type", select "Progressive YUV 4:4:4:’. Another drop down menu will appear. Select "12" for that box. For quality, I use "95" for general use, but we’ll be changing that as we compress files, so the default of 90 is fine for now.
After those settings are in, click OK. Back in the Image File tab, you can also set SnagIT to automatically give the images you save a name. This is what I use, because I can’t be arsed to type in a file name for each image I save. I can do that later. If you want, under "File name", select "Automatic file name". The Output folder will light up. This is where pictures will automatically be saved to. I use my desktop to save images, and move them to wherever I want them to be later. So, click the folder icon next to the Output folder setting area, and scroll the bar all the way to the top. You should see "Desktop" as the first thing listed. Select Desktop, and click OK. On the Output Properties dialog box, click Apply then OK.
With that, the basic image quality is saved. For the sake of knowing it will take several tries to get a picture down to 50 kB or less, select BMP (bitmap) as the file format that SnagIT will initially save as. After you have your image cropped down to the size you want, THEN go back and switch to JPG as the format to save to. Now on to messing with an image. I assume, since you need to reduce an image, that you already have a picture saved on your computer. So:
Input | Advanced Graphic File
There are two basic ways you can initiate a capture: by clicking the red "Capture" button, or using SnagIT’s default hotkey, Ctrl+Shift+P, which means the SnatIT window doesn’t have to be in your view. Simply pressing Control, Shift and the letter "P" at the same time will make snagit capture an image.
So, lets just hit the Capture button for now. Go ahead... click it. Good, now select an image (just to mess around with) and click Open. Ignore the little tip box that shows at the top. For now, there are two buttons you need to learn real quick: The green checkmark and the red X. Clicking the checkmark will save the image. The red X will cancel the save. Ok? Ok.
Scrolling your mouse’s scroll wheel will move the image up and down. Zooming in and out can be done via the two magnifying glasses on the top left corner that have a "+" and "-" icon on them. Other tools can be accessed under the "Tools" section, and are really basic, so they should be very easy for you to use and understand. If you mess something up, the UNDO and REDOO buttons are on the top, just under the "save as" button. They appear as a left swooshing and a right swooshing arrow. As far as I currently know, SnagIT will not let you crop an image if you have a circular selection. So, a square/rectangular selection will have to do for now.
To crop and image of a coin down to just a square, click the "selection" tool in the Tools section (it’s the third one on the top, the small box). After you select this tool, you’ll notice under the Tools section, another section has various ways you can select parts of your image. To select a square shape around your coin, obviously, use the... rectangular shaped button under "shape". It should take no more than 3 moves to perfectly select your coin (unless you have REALLY good eye sight). First, select a small box on the coin (this is the first move). You’ll notice 8 small black dots on the selected area, three at the top, three at the bottom, and one on the left and one on the right hand side of the selection. These allow you to adjust your selections. We only need to use two of the opposing corner adjusters. The corner adjusters will adjust the height and width at the same time (as opposed to the other 4 adjusters only adjusting either just the height or just the width). Adjust the height and width of one corner adjuster so that the top/bottom and side line up with the top/bottom and side of the coin (that was the second move). Next, use the opposite corner adjuster to do the same, only with the remaining two sides of the coin (that’s the third move). After you’ve done that, you should see a selection box perfectly placed around the coin, boxing it in. Now to trim.
After you have your coin boxed in with the selection tool, click the icon to the right of the two magnifying glass icons (it looks like a box with a diagonal slash through it). You’ll notice that the rest of the image will disappear, leaving nothing but your coin, and some stuff around the corners of the coin. If you used a solid background for the coin, you don’t have to worry about it. If you want, though, you CAN make all of the other stuff "go away". You can completely skip this if you’re satisfied with your boxed in coin. So, lets remove the junk around the coin. First, as we did with the box selection, use the oval selection tool and select just the coin itself. The easiest way to do this is use the top left hand corner of your boxed-in coin, and drag down to the bottom right corner. This should put an circle (or oval) around your coin. This will NOT work if you took a picture of your coin at an odd angle. After you have your coin selected, right click the coin and click CUT. The coin should disappear, leaving a white circle (or oval) where the coin was. DON’T FEAR, the coin is in your clipboard (so as long as you don’t use the clipboard again). So, before you accidentally use your clipboard again, select the eraser icon under the tools section. Under the tools section, you’ll see a section for the eraser. Set your eraser’s width to 50 (the max it can go), and erase all the junk left on your image. After you have just a white box left, switch back to your selection tool, right click on your blank image, and click PASTE. BAM (as Emeril Lagasse says)! Your coin is back, with nothing around it but white.
NOW is the time to save your image (as a bitmap, like I pointed out earlier, because we aren’t through yet). Click the green check mark box, and let the image save. Now capture an image again, and now select your new bitmap image. You should see a familiar face (or animal, depending on your coin) in the Capture Preview box. Now let’s add a black background to the image (skip this if you’re happy with the white background). Under the tools section, select the fill icon. Take note, above the tools section, you see some black and white boxes listed as "colors". These represent the colors your mouse will use if you click either the left or right mouse buttons. By default, your left mouse button will fill with black, the right button will fill with white. If you wish to use a color other than black (such as navy blue), click the square representing your mouse button, and select your color from the resulting menu. Now to fill. On your image, click the (usually) 4 white areas around your coin to fill them in with black (or whatever other color you chose. Ohhh, ahhhh. Looks good, eh? Save the image again (as a bitmap) under a different name (just incase you aren’t happy with the outcomes with a colored background).
Now is the time to tell SnagIT to start saving as a JPG image. So, do that by following the steps way early in this tutorial. So now let’s get that sucker under 50 kB (and still look like a good image!).
1) With SnagIT set to 90% quality JPG, capture your bitmap image again (familiar face again! Or animal...). On the Capture Preview window, click the checkmark button.
2) The image is now saved as a jpeg (unless you chose a file name each time you save, it should be as "SNAG-0001.jpg" or something of the sort). Now check the file size. Right click on the new image on your desktop (or wherever you had it save to), and click Properties. Next to "Size", you’ll see (something like) this:
67.8 KB (69,498 bytes)
Ah... too big. 50 KB is equal to 51,200 bytes, so it can’t be bigger than 51,.200 bytes in
size. If the image is under 50 KB, skip to step 5. If not, move to step 3.
3) If the size is too big, repeat step 1, only at 5% lower, then step 2.
4) If it’s still too big, repeat step 3 until the image is under 50 KB.
5) When your image is under 50 KB, open the image file and check if you’re satisfied with the image quality. If you’re satisfied, time to upload your image somewhere, and post it. If not, then do this:
6) Filter | Image Scaling 33% (this will make the image 33% smaller)
7) Repeat steps 1 and 2. If you're still not satisfied with the quality (what the hell, how big was your initial image?!?!?!), reduce by 50%, then repeats steps 1 and 2 again.
Don’t forget to set the image scaling back to none after you’re done, and to reset the image quality back to 90% for your general use of SnagIT. I love this program a lot, and use it constantly. Play around with it. Learn it. It’s easy as hell, and VERY good to use. If you like it after 30 days, buy it (or 5-finger discount, whichever), and enjoy it.
If you have more questions, feel free to ask. Sorry this isn’t an image-laced tutorial... should be simple enough to use SnagIT with the explanations I gave. If not, *slams head on table*
Feel free to print this out, or post in other parts of this forum.
How to reduce an image file size with SnagIT 7.1.1
And other neat things.
This tutorial is brought to you by DominusDeus,
and sponsored in part by the letters "T", "I", "R", "E", "D",
and the word "FINGERS".
SnagIT is available here for a free 30 day trial, after which, costs $39.95 to purchase. ( http://wcarchive.cdrom.com/pub/bws/bws_48/snagit.exe ). It’s 9.52 MB, so it will take a while to download if you’re on 56k (if you can hunt down version 5.1.1 (still costs money), it’s much smaller, and still excellent).
After you’ve installed it, obviously get rid of the nag screen (unless you’ve a serial number to put in), and get to the main SnagIT window. First, we’ll set up the basic settings.
First, since I’m used to version 5.1.1, click "View" then click "Classic Mode". Uncheck the box on the bottom left, and click "Yes".
This is the format I like to display settings:
Something | something | something something
The | represents menus. Example, if you were going to click "fitlers, then color depth, then halftone", I will display it as:
Filters | Color Depth Halftone
You can see, the first two are menus, the item after the is what you click. So lets set up the jpeg quality. For now, we’ll have the input to "window", so:
Input Window
By default, on the Output menu, "file" and "preview" will be already selected, so:
Output Properties Image File tab
Under the File Format section, select JPEG, then click Options.
On the File Format Options box, for "Colors", leave it at Automatic. For "Subfile type", select "Progressive YUV 4:4:4:’. Another drop down menu will appear. Select "12" for that box. For quality, I use "95" for general use, but we’ll be changing that as we compress files, so the default of 90 is fine for now.
After those settings are in, click OK. Back in the Image File tab, you can also set SnagIT to automatically give the images you save a name. This is what I use, because I can’t be arsed to type in a file name for each image I save. I can do that later. If you want, under "File name", select "Automatic file name". The Output folder will light up. This is where pictures will automatically be saved to. I use my desktop to save images, and move them to wherever I want them to be later. So, click the folder icon next to the Output folder setting area, and scroll the bar all the way to the top. You should see "Desktop" as the first thing listed. Select Desktop, and click OK. On the Output Properties dialog box, click Apply then OK.
With that, the basic image quality is saved. For the sake of knowing it will take several tries to get a picture down to 50 kB or less, select BMP (bitmap) as the file format that SnagIT will initially save as. After you have your image cropped down to the size you want, THEN go back and switch to JPG as the format to save to. Now on to messing with an image. I assume, since you need to reduce an image, that you already have a picture saved on your computer. So:
Input | Advanced Graphic File
There are two basic ways you can initiate a capture: by clicking the red "Capture" button, or using SnagIT’s default hotkey, Ctrl+Shift+P, which means the SnatIT window doesn’t have to be in your view. Simply pressing Control, Shift and the letter "P" at the same time will make snagit capture an image.
So, lets just hit the Capture button for now. Go ahead... click it. Good, now select an image (just to mess around with) and click Open. Ignore the little tip box that shows at the top. For now, there are two buttons you need to learn real quick: The green checkmark and the red X. Clicking the checkmark will save the image. The red X will cancel the save. Ok? Ok.
Scrolling your mouse’s scroll wheel will move the image up and down. Zooming in and out can be done via the two magnifying glasses on the top left corner that have a "+" and "-" icon on them. Other tools can be accessed under the "Tools" section, and are really basic, so they should be very easy for you to use and understand. If you mess something up, the UNDO and REDOO buttons are on the top, just under the "save as" button. They appear as a left swooshing and a right swooshing arrow. As far as I currently know, SnagIT will not let you crop an image if you have a circular selection. So, a square/rectangular selection will have to do for now.
To crop and image of a coin down to just a square, click the "selection" tool in the Tools section (it’s the third one on the top, the small box). After you select this tool, you’ll notice under the Tools section, another section has various ways you can select parts of your image. To select a square shape around your coin, obviously, use the... rectangular shaped button under "shape". It should take no more than 3 moves to perfectly select your coin (unless you have REALLY good eye sight). First, select a small box on the coin (this is the first move). You’ll notice 8 small black dots on the selected area, three at the top, three at the bottom, and one on the left and one on the right hand side of the selection. These allow you to adjust your selections. We only need to use two of the opposing corner adjusters. The corner adjusters will adjust the height and width at the same time (as opposed to the other 4 adjusters only adjusting either just the height or just the width). Adjust the height and width of one corner adjuster so that the top/bottom and side line up with the top/bottom and side of the coin (that was the second move). Next, use the opposite corner adjuster to do the same, only with the remaining two sides of the coin (that’s the third move). After you’ve done that, you should see a selection box perfectly placed around the coin, boxing it in. Now to trim.
After you have your coin boxed in with the selection tool, click the icon to the right of the two magnifying glass icons (it looks like a box with a diagonal slash through it). You’ll notice that the rest of the image will disappear, leaving nothing but your coin, and some stuff around the corners of the coin. If you used a solid background for the coin, you don’t have to worry about it. If you want, though, you CAN make all of the other stuff "go away". You can completely skip this if you’re satisfied with your boxed in coin. So, lets remove the junk around the coin. First, as we did with the box selection, use the oval selection tool and select just the coin itself. The easiest way to do this is use the top left hand corner of your boxed-in coin, and drag down to the bottom right corner. This should put an circle (or oval) around your coin. This will NOT work if you took a picture of your coin at an odd angle. After you have your coin selected, right click the coin and click CUT. The coin should disappear, leaving a white circle (or oval) where the coin was. DON’T FEAR, the coin is in your clipboard (so as long as you don’t use the clipboard again). So, before you accidentally use your clipboard again, select the eraser icon under the tools section. Under the tools section, you’ll see a section for the eraser. Set your eraser’s width to 50 (the max it can go), and erase all the junk left on your image. After you have just a white box left, switch back to your selection tool, right click on your blank image, and click PASTE. BAM (as Emeril Lagasse says)! Your coin is back, with nothing around it but white.
NOW is the time to save your image (as a bitmap, like I pointed out earlier, because we aren’t through yet). Click the green check mark box, and let the image save. Now capture an image again, and now select your new bitmap image. You should see a familiar face (or animal, depending on your coin) in the Capture Preview box. Now let’s add a black background to the image (skip this if you’re happy with the white background). Under the tools section, select the fill icon. Take note, above the tools section, you see some black and white boxes listed as "colors". These represent the colors your mouse will use if you click either the left or right mouse buttons. By default, your left mouse button will fill with black, the right button will fill with white. If you wish to use a color other than black (such as navy blue), click the square representing your mouse button, and select your color from the resulting menu. Now to fill. On your image, click the (usually) 4 white areas around your coin to fill them in with black (or whatever other color you chose. Ohhh, ahhhh. Looks good, eh? Save the image again (as a bitmap) under a different name (just incase you aren’t happy with the outcomes with a colored background).
Now is the time to tell SnagIT to start saving as a JPG image. So, do that by following the steps way early in this tutorial. So now let’s get that sucker under 50 kB (and still look like a good image!).
1) With SnagIT set to 90% quality JPG, capture your bitmap image again (familiar face again! Or animal...). On the Capture Preview window, click the checkmark button.
2) The image is now saved as a jpeg (unless you chose a file name each time you save, it should be as "SNAG-0001.jpg" or something of the sort). Now check the file size. Right click on the new image on your desktop (or wherever you had it save to), and click Properties. Next to "Size", you’ll see (something like) this:
67.8 KB (69,498 bytes)
Ah... too big. 50 KB is equal to 51,200 bytes, so it can’t be bigger than 51,.200 bytes in
size. If the image is under 50 KB, skip to step 5. If not, move to step 3.
3) If the size is too big, repeat step 1, only at 5% lower, then step 2.
4) If it’s still too big, repeat step 3 until the image is under 50 KB.
5) When your image is under 50 KB, open the image file and check if you’re satisfied with the image quality. If you’re satisfied, time to upload your image somewhere, and post it. If not, then do this:
6) Filter | Image Scaling 33% (this will make the image 33% smaller)
7) Repeat steps 1 and 2. If you're still not satisfied with the quality (what the hell, how big was your initial image?!?!?!), reduce by 50%, then repeats steps 1 and 2 again.
Don’t forget to set the image scaling back to none after you’re done, and to reset the image quality back to 90% for your general use of SnagIT. I love this program a lot, and use it constantly. Play around with it. Learn it. It’s easy as hell, and VERY good to use. If you like it after 30 days, buy it (or 5-finger discount, whichever), and enjoy it.
If you have more questions, feel free to ask. Sorry this isn’t an image-laced tutorial... should be simple enough to use SnagIT with the explanations I gave. If not, *slams head on table*
Feel free to print this out, or post in other parts of this forum.
0
Comments
First load the image into Photoshop.
Next Select from the tools menu bar, Imgae size.
Change the size of the image.
Then select the "Save For Web" option, select what kind of quality you want, and save the image.
At this point you'll see how large your image is, so you can go back to the image size option and make it smaller
if need be.
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