This is the tutorial for optimising jpgs using adobe photoshop. The following related tutorials are available:

• Optimising jpgs in the GIMP
• Optimising jpgs in macromedia fireworks.
• Optimising jpgs in Paintshop Pro

Optimising jpgs may seem less important than optimising the often much larger animations but on a board where there could well be 25 jpgs it's still best to compress them as far as possible. Luckily it is also much easier than compressing animations.

Step 1 - Image size

An appropriate image size is all important in a picture, there is mo quicker way to arouse the ire of the b3ta message board than to post an 800x600 paintmash at full size. As stated in the FAQ posts larger than 280px wide will be too large for the frontpage and since there is a particular thrill in seeing your post there you will probably want to obey this.

On the otherhand since with many posts you aren't nessecarily aiming for the frontpage posts up to around 450px wide can be acceptable if the extra size is nessecary for effect.

Step 2 - Blurring

As i stated on the previous page, jpgs like smooth olour curves and to this end one easy way to reduce the size of a file is to selectively blur those regions of your picture which do not require detail (i.e. the background and margins). This need only be done lightly to have a noticable impact on file size.

Step 3 - Export optimisation

This is where the most significant savings in terms of file size can be made. To optimise the image go to save for web in the file menu:

When you click on this it will take you to the optimisation window which contains the export settings:

Of these settings we are most interested in the quality adjustment. This defines how closely the jpegs colour curves will match those in the original image. Typically I would have this set to 30 as i feel this provides the best size:quality ratio however for larger images i might turn this down to 20 or lower. The blur tool is useful if you skipped stage 2, it adds a gentle gaussian blur to the whole image to smooth out colour curves. This is useful in larger images however i tend to favour blurring by hand as it allows you some control over which details you wish to keep.

Good luck with your optimisation, if you have any further questions on the subject e-mail me and i'll be more than happy to attempt to help you.