The method detailed below has
only been tried in Photoshop version
7.0.
It's a common problem: You work really hard on an image, but when it comes
time to optimize it for the internet, you find that either your image file size
is too large, or you've lowered the quality and blurred it so much that you can
barely make out the details. Many of you probably already know about Photoshop's
"Save for Web" feature, and some of you may have even gotten good at playing
with the settings to get that perfect balance of quality and file size. But
there's an even easier way:
Step 1:
If you go
to File>Save for Web, you will get the standard save-for-web window that many of
you are already familiar with:
Step 2:
On the
right hand side, next to the "Settings" drop-down menu, there is a circular
button with a right facing triangle inside. If you click, it you will get the
following options:
Step 3:
Select
"Optimize to File Size", and the following window will appear:
You now have the
option of letting Photoshop do all hard work for you. You can enter in your
desired file size (in this case 15k), and if you select "Auto Select GIF/JPEG",
Photoshop will automatically decide which file type is best suited for your
particular image.
When using this method, Photoshop will automatically try to get as close to
your desired file size as possible without sacrificing (too much) image quality.
Sometimes your file size may be below 15k, and sometimes above – it all depends
on the complexity of your image.
However, one disadvantage of using this method is that Photoshop will only
adjust the "quality" setting of the image, and will generally not adjust the
blur setting. When used correctly, the "blur" setting can greatly reduce the
file size of jpegs without significantly compromising image quality. Another
disadvantage is that another way Photoshop may decide to reduce your image file
size is to sacrifice colors in your image, and this may not always be ideal.
Ultimately, the best way to optimize an image is to adjust the settings
manually. To do this, it's helpful to understand what each setting does, and you
can learn this using Photoshop's Help feature. Until then, this is a quick and
easy way for beginners (and the lazy among us) to optimize images.