stop making PNGs


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Thread: stop making PNGs

  1. #1
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    stop making PNGs!!!

    in screenshots, many people give PNGs instead of JPEG. JPG is much much smaller than PNG. i know PNG is lossless and JPG can put many ugly artifacts, but the size is much much smaller, even for the high quality!

    so when giving screenshots, use JPG! poeple will see many other screenshots and won't wait for your one to load.
    but when making wallpaper, use PNG! people usually chooses a good one from the thumbnail and then use it for a long time.

    even PNG's own site uses JPG as the banner. they also write:

    "Note that for transmission of finished truecolor images--especially photographic ones--JPEG is almost always a better choice. Although JPEG's lossy compression can introduce visible artifacts, these can be minimized, and the savings in file size even at high quality levels is much better than is generally possible with a lossless format like PNG"

  2. #2
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    The way I understand it is that jpegs are good for things with a lot of colors, such as pictures or photographs, and png/gifs are good for things that use few colors, such as logos, icons, charts graphs, and such. Usually if you try to make logos or icons with jpegs, they look like crap, and if you save photogragh type image as a png or a gif, you end up with a huge file. When people give screenshots, maybe they use png since its lossless (thats the right one isnt it), and it wont degrade in quality at all and make what they are trying to show look like its not all bad and fuzzy or whatever. There are probably other reasons I'm missing...
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  3. #3
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    There are probably other reasons I'm missing...
    Many screencapture programs default to PNG and I think most of Linux users have fast internet connection, so they don't pay attention to how big the image file is. I think that's why PNG is so popular.

  4. #4
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    I think most of Linux users have fast internet connection, so they don't pay attention to how big the image file is
    selfish! i know the screen won't look as good as a PNG, but i have other screenshots to look with my dialup than wait so long for it to load

  5. #5
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    Just a thought...

    You say they are selfish for using PNGs because they have fast internet and don't think about it. What if they say you are selfish for making them look at lower quality images just so you don't have to wait as long for images to download?
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  6. #6
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    For a certain image at work, I've noticed that if I compress it with JPEG, it's about 16K. If I compress it with PNG (at the same bit depth, same everything, AFAIK), it's 30K. This is a pretty tiny image (approximately 100 pixels square), so it's probably not even a good test, but oh well.

    30K is not that big... (Unless it's an inline image using the [img] tag, but that's just dumb anyway -- anybody with a large image like a screenshot should be linking to the image somewhere else, so that people that don't want to see it don't have to download anything.)

    And this image I'm talking about was a photograph, not a screenshot. Most screenshots that I've seen have large areas of the same color anyway, so they'll compress about the same with PNG as with JPG. And PNG won't introduce artifacts.

  7. #7
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    Progressive .png's is the way to do what your talking about. Very simple to do in Gimp. They load just as fast as most .jpegs, though not all at once, but ....progressively.
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  8. #8
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    Originally posted by bwkaz
    And PNG won't introduce artifacts. [/B]
    My biggest complaint about .jpeg's.

    BTW..dont ever go to the Smithsonian...they'll try to introduce you to all kinds of "artifacts".
    "I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know
    the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?" And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going
    to be out that long."

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  9. #9
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    Most screenshots that I've seen have large areas of the same color anyway, so they'll compress about the same with PNG as with JPG
    yeah right. right now, go to gimp, click aquire screenshot, save as PNG with highest compression, and JPG with 85% quality, and see the file sizes.
    also, save the PNG again with JPG with 99% quality. compare that JPEG with PNG both quality and file size. they look the same (99% JPG and PNG) and the jpeg is half the size.

    also just go to the new screenshot thread. take ANY two PNG screen with same res, and ANY two JPG, combine them, and see the difference in file sizes.


    What if they say you are selfish for making them look at lower quality images just so you don't have to wait as long for images to download?
    ha ha. you are right. but anyway, if they saved it as 99% or 95% quality JPEG, there is no human seeable quality difference amd the size is much smaller

  10. #10
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    Lets have a compromise -- people should make png and jpeg screenshots and use the jpeg one as thumbnail.

    Its perfect on theory but some people just can be bothered to do it and some thumbnailing sites don't have the space.

    Oh, and if anyone has the urge to use gif, please don't do it before its license is over. and pngs can be easily ported to windows longhorn
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  11. #11
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    Originally posted by XiaoKJ

    Oh, and if anyone has the urge to use gif, please don't do it before its license is over. and pngs can be easily ported to windows longhorn
    .png's are portable to XP...now. In fact open one in MS Paint.
    "I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know
    the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?" And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going
    to be out that long."

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  12. #12
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    Re: stop making PNGs!!!

    Originally posted by rocketpcguy
    ...so when giving screenshots, use JPG!
    OK...it's morning, and I'm shy a couple cups of coffee; but my reaction to the general tone of your posting is that you're begging to get yourself flamed for being overly-*****y about being too cheap to pop for broadband.

    I'll hasten to add that I do see your point and, to a limited extent, even agree with you; however, since optimizing PNGs for web distribution gives me file sizes nearly equivalent with those for JPEG format, and I refuse to use GIF because of the LZW/Unisys issue; I use PNG exclusively.

    After a couple of cups of coffee: While I think you could have phrased your OP a bit differently, I still won't abandon PNGs.

  13. #13
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    I've noticed that for some reason, gnome's screenshot's feature produces HUGE pngs, and I can't figure out why. Anyother picutre I save as pngs vs jpgs, the png is usually smaller.

    Ok, I just tried it, and the png was ~ 160K. The same image as a jpg was ~192KB (85% qual, 0% smoothing). My screen resolution is 1280x1024. Anyone else wanna comment?

  14. #14
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    Originally posted by MighMos
    I've noticed that for some reason, gnome's screenshot's feature produces HUGE pngs, and I can't figure out why. Anyother picutre I save as pngs vs jpgs, the png is usually smaller.

    Ok, I just tried it, and the png was ~ 160K. The same image as a jpg was ~192KB (85% qual, 0% smoothing). My screen resolution is 1280x1024. Anyone else wanna comment?
    Algorithms...some apps are just kludgy and no finesse. The reason it saves such huge .png's is that your not calling .jpeg's from the app and just clicking and going. Try using the .jpeg ext.
    "I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know
    the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?" And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going
    to be out that long."

    How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
    COME VISIT ME IN RUSSIA NOW!!

  15. #15
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    I just did a test.. my jpg screenie was ~400K, my png screenie was 2.1M, using the defaults from gimp.

    Being on dialup, I feel your pain... I havn't even looked at the screenshot thread since i left college. It's too painful....
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