Saving Large Images

[Ellie]

How do you save a large graphic (like a banner) so that the colors aren't distorted?

I've been working on a new template and the banner for it is kind of large so when I save it the colors go all funny. It's not hugely noticeable, but enough that it bothers me. I tried saving it as both a gif and as a jpg and they both make it look weird, although in different ways.

How can I keep it from doing that?

Thanks to anyone who can explain this mystery to me!

[Michael]

I save basically all of my work in .png. If you have that, then I'd say that that is your best bet.

[Aaron]

send as jpg if that doesnt work send what isnt distrorted to me ill save it

If it's photoshop save as .psd

[Ellie]

Thanks you two.

Michael, it worked to save it as a png. Looks much better now!

Thanks for the offer, Aaron. I appreciate it!

[matthew]

I'm always having this problem. I don't save as a .png anymore because they can be very slow loading.

i always use the gif and jpeg optimizers and mess around with the settings. It depends on the image.

I always try to compress the image as much as possible, i might even let the image become a tiny bit distorted, but it's usually not noticable. I always have to save really big images as jpegs, and i rarely have to mess about to much to get most stuff to work, except big gradients.

I tend to save forum graphics as gifs (although the one I'm working on now, i've started saving as jpegs ;D ), but things like really colourful banners and big or biggish images that use various gradients are very hard to gif.

One thing that some times works with gradients it to increase the dithering to get reduce the blocky lines of colour, but it can sometimes make the image look worse.

[Ellie]

Thanks M@! I have been using the optimizers, but I can't seem to come up with anything that looks right. Maybe I'm just being too picky? lol That could be it.

I'm interested to see these forum graphics you're saving as jpgs! Whenever I've tried that they turn out blurry. lol I just have no luck (or maybe talent, lol) with these things.

I suppose I should see how the png loads...

Thanks for the advice!

[hischild]

Ellie I started saving as pngs and THEN from the png, I save as a jpg or gif. Saving straight to jpg or gif often makes my colors bleed if it is jpg or grainy if is a gif. That's actually why I got so disgusted with myself and swore off graphics. Then pb often changes my pngs to jpgs too. So I get mad and delete, delete, delete.

[Smangii]

hischild said:

Ellie I started saving as pngs and THEN from the png, I save as a jpg or gif. Saving straight to jpg or gif often makes my colors bleed if it is jpg or grainy if is a gif. That's actually why I got so disgusted with myself and swore off graphics. Then pb often changes my pngs to jpgs too. So I get mad and delete, delete, delete.

lol! That's exactly what I do! Whenever I save directly as a gif, all the colors reverse 0_o. As a jpg mine tend to blur =/ pngs work the best for me, then using like PSP I optimize them into gifs.

Such a long process for such a simple task
There needs to be an easy button for saving pics ^_^

[Ellie]

Thanks GC and Smangii! I actually tried that this morning and it worked beautifully!

[lostsoul]

I allways save as .jpg unless its a very small image with only a few colours. The colours never bleed or run when i save it with Gimp and i can save sigs at really low levels with small sizes with great quality

[Smangii]

Thanks GC and Smangii! I actually tried that this morning and it worked beautifully!

Oh, no need to thank me! It was God's Child who posted first and I just agreed with her ^.^

I allways save as .jpg unless its a very small image with only a few colours. The colours never bleed or run when i save it with Gimp and i can save sigs at really low levels with small sizes with great quality

Hmm, sounds like Gimp works pretty well. I think I'll give it a try ^.^