I had an image saved it to gif, had a really big transparent rectangle around it, when i open it its bubbles in the background. I figured out i was in high color mode. then someone said i should crop the image.?!!??! How do i crop in image that it will not look blurry in a high color monitor?

Chris

What software did you use to save as a transparent gif.
I don't think it could be saved as a T Gif in anything higher than 256. Prior to converting to T Gif you should crop so that you have as little excess space as possible.
Why not post a link to the image so we can see it.

As the offending border is on the outside of the image the idea to crop it is correct. However I think you might have this confused with quality saving. When you 'crop' an image you're only removing a section of it (such as the bubbly border). You can still save it as high, or low a quality as you wish.

Greg Moore

Agree and you know, I have this really crappy program that effectively compresses the images, yet still maintains an extremely good quality, (ok, it isn't really crappy, just non-professional). I thought that all programs work the same (compression wise), but for whatever reason this particular program works better than other ones I have.

Even at high quality with the other programs, the file size is larger, and the qulaity isn't quite as good. This came with my scanner, and is by Presto! - ImageFolio LE. Not sure if you can download it, but I keep it on my system (for a crappy program it works well). I have way too many image editing programs on this machine.

Originally posted by Chicken
I have way too many image editing programs on this machine.

*lol* I know what you mean...

If anyone is wondering what the best for compression are (IMHO) and price isn't a concern, have a look at Macromedia Fireworks and De-Babalizer (sp?) Haven't used the second one but it's always right up there in reviews and articles when it comes to squeezing the most out of your images sizing.

Greg Moore

PSP (PaintShop Pro) is a good, solid editor for most of the day-to-day things one needs to do in web building, and not expensive. See: http://www.jasc.com

Agree to that. PSP is a great little tool, and with the Animation Shop program built in it's very good. I never use it to design though - not because it's got any flaws, but as a Photoshop junkie I can't get my head around the interface. (a common problem I hear)

Greg Moore

The PSP interface takes a more 'nuts and bolts' kind of approach -- and assumes you really know the mechanics of putting together graphics. Personally, I prefer that -- but I can readily understand the attraction of Photoshop and other packages that tend to take you by the hand more.

*lol*

I think it's those lil icons that don't make sense.. Of course the 'RTFM rule' probably applies :)

The attraction of Photoshop always lies in the photo quality manipulation it uses - being a print world application. Until 5.0 plus it's always been nasty for web graphics as the sizing it large. 5.5 and later apparently fixes this though I'm sticking with 5.0 as it's the one I have and Adobe aren't generous when it comes to pricing. I just run the .PSD files though Macromedia Fireworks 3.0 and export them as gif or jpeg.

To a seasoned graphics type you can tell the difference between a Photoshop graphic and 'the rest' They might be ass-bags lately with their addiction to sueing other companies but it's still top-o-the-heap. :) I recommend doing a net search on a guy called Dave McKean. He does a lot of album covers and is best known for his work on Neil Gaiman's 'Sandman' comic series. His work shows Photoshop's layering and manipulation techniques at it's best (ie. no nasty filters).

I like it for this same reason. The corporate stuff is a walk in the park at 10 layers or so, but every now and then I get to do something nifty (mostly personal or music related), that can run up to 40-50 layers. At this end of it all, Photoshop starts to show it's value. I think I remember my current record sitting at 87 layers or so for a single graphic. After optimizing it (400px by 400px) it came in at 26k through Fireworks. Straight out of Photoshop it was 70k or so as a jpg. :)

If I need a quick job for a title graphic or what not I'll just boot up Fireworks and have it done in a second or two (optimized straight away) but the groovy fun stuff is always Adobe. Oh, the layering in PSP is still a little nasty too - I think 6.0 is the first to use it properly? Found that hell on wheels to figure out.

Greg Moore

I'm certainly in general agreement with all that, Greg. PSP is much more utility-oriented, and I surely wouldn't go trotting off to assemble one of my 50-layer extravaganzas on it... though they did make many improvements in the latest PSP versions.

Can't seem to find an official Dave McKean site but this one has a ton of his work...

http://www.endless.org/dreamline/

Just to show that layering I was talking about :)

Greg Moore

Lux,

Sure! Remember the old ver 3 shareware's you used to be able to download and use forever? A step up from Microsoft Paint *lol* I posted a review at epinons a while ago along the same lines. At the rate they are adding features they'll be doing themselves in by keeping the price so low.

With the anim program build in they are streets ahead of Adobe in a feature Vs price comparison. If version 7, 8 and 9 improve the way they have so far a few years from now they'll have Adobe over a barrel if they keep the price close to what it is now.

To do what I do I use several programs costing a total of several thousand dollars. The day PSP can do my Photoshop stuff the way I do it now, I can sell it all and be a happy boy....

... not for a while though - a new year coming, and Macromedia has announced Dreamweaver and Fireworks ver 4!! Now I'm old hat *again* :) *gasp* Glad I got Flash 5 as a free upgrade.

Greg Moore

IMHO, Adobe software is obscenely over-priced. A little competition will do them good.

and the exact reason I'm sticking with Photoshop 5.0 :) I had 4.0 but saw an ad in the paper where someone was selling 5.0 for next to nothing. Turns out it was a promo copy (ie cannot upgrade but has a cooler box). It was cheap enough that I wasn't going to ask too many questions about it's origins. *grin*

It's served me well. In general you can probably pick up a copy of 5.0 or so for about the same price as a new copy of PSP these days seeing as they've gone through 5.5 and now 6.0

Greg Moore

Originally posted by akashik
I ... saw an ad in the paper where someone was selling 5.0 for next to nothing. ...It was cheap enough that I wasn't going to ask too many questions about it's origins. *grin*

Rather than commit software theft, Greg, why don't you "do the right thing" and buy 6.0...

For a mere US $609.00 you can get it, right here: http://www.adobe.com/store/products/photoshop.html

Think how much good this will do for your karma -- not to mention how much fatter it will make Adobe's bankbook.

Only $609 US et? Sheesh :)

Remember the sage wisdom expressed by The Three Wise Men -- specifically, the one in the turban on the left:

Never buy retail. My cousin Hymen, he can get you a deal.

At last check in Australian monopoly money Photoshop 6.0 was around $1200 or so.... For $400 I got ver 5.0 - doesn't take a math genius to add that up that it was a good deal.

Theft = paying for something that was free? *shrug*

Ok, call me a thief *smile*

Greg Moore

Do I care, Greg? Nah!

thats alot, are you talking US$ or some other australiain money

Originally posted by akashik
[B

If anyone is wondering what the best for compression are (IMHO) and price isn't a concern, have a look at Macromedia Fireworks and De-Babalizer (sp?) Haven't used the second one but it's always right up there in reviews and articles when it comes to squeezing the most out of your images sizing.

Greg Moore [/B]

Debabelizer is the best tool I've found for altering/compressing images with minimal loss of quality. I've taken full 8.5" x 11" pages and gotten them down to 100-125 KB JPGs (72 DPI) while maintaining their original integrity (and if I'd bothered to crop them, I probably could have gotten them even lower but the boss was happy so I am too :D). The best I could do with most other prgrams was between 400 and 600 KB. Mind you, I'm not what you call a graphic expert, but I know what I saw.

One thing I've found that works well, for those who own a copy of Debabelizer, is to save an image from your normal graphic editor (PhotoShop for example) at 300 DPI, then convert it to 72 with the Debabelizer. It does a much nicer job. (Mind you, if you're going do to 8.5"x11" pages, you're gonna need some heavy duty RAM. On a PIII 500 at 256 MB RAM, I waited for a minute or two.)

Originally posted by etLux
Remember the sage wisdom expressed by The Three Wise Men -- specifically, the one in the turban on the left:

Never buy retail. My cousin Hymen, he can get you a deal.


Actually, the Three Wise Men were named H4x0r, r33t, and 3y30wNJ00, and what they said was "V|s|T mY wAr3Z 5|T3 4T http://www.wArEzRC00l.ru, 0-7 dAy!" I'm not sure whether or not they were in turbans though. Being Russian, I'd have to assume they weren't.