Save as Jpeg...again

[Michael Bailey]

I'm almost ashamed to ask this question. I thought I understood the differences between Photoshop's "Save for Web and Devices..." and plain old "Save as...Jpeg", but now I'm stumped.

I had some 150x200 pixel tiff files that a client needed delivered as jpegs of less than 20 KB. "Save as..." in Photoshop couldn't do it, even at the lowest quality setting. The resulting file was too big and too ugly. (I also tried Lightroom's Export function: same result.) Then I went back to Photoshop and used "Save for Web and Devices..." and, sure enough, got good looking jpegs of only 19 KB.

I figured the difference must lie in whether metadata got stripped from the file, but I was surprised to see I'd set both methods to leave the metadata intact. From what I could tell, both resulting files contained the same "File Info".

I understand that the two processes use different "engines" to get their results, but I was disappointed that a newer program like Lightroom would use the older, seemingly inferior process. I was sorry that I had to give up the convenience of its Export feature to get the results I needed. Or, am I missing something, again?

Thanks,   MB

[jim tillman]

Hi Michael,

Ii have run into this problem before and found a pretty useful solution, although it surprisingly (?) does not involve Photoshop. If you are on a mac, use the software 'PREVIEW'. It seems that it does not attach all the usual thumbnails, metadata, or whatever else tends to make the files bigger than you want.

Simply open the image in PREVIEW and then do a 'save as' at whatever quality you deem appropriate, creating a new copy of the image. If you do it in a separate folder and compare the file sizes, I am certain you will see a big difference.

If you are on a PC, I would imaging that there is a similar standalone app that can achieve the same thing. Good luck!

[Michael Bailey]

Thank you, Jim. I'm relieved that I'm not the only person who has come across this trouble, and I appreciate your suggestion. I'm a PC guy, so I would need to use some equivalent to Preview. I think the Jpeg utility in IrfanView would do the job.

But I guess what I was really hoping for was a magic bullet that would make Lightroom's Export function do what "Save for Web and Devices..." can. It's so convenient.

I'm going to look for some metadata-stripping software and see if that helps.

MB

[Michael Bailey]

Okay, plug-ins to the rescue. I've loaded Jeffrey Friedl's "Metadata Wrangler" into Lightroom and all is well. A 150x200 jpeg pixel portrait of 80 quality with the plug-in on full blast (all metadata stripped) makes a 12 KB file. Without use of the plug-in, the resulting file comes in at 40 KB. That's a big difference.

If I set the plug-in to preserve just the copyright and caption information, the resulting file still takes up only 12 KB.

One interesting note. Lightroom has a check box by which you can "Limit File Size To:..." and the program will give you the highest quality for a selected file size. But I think Wrangler does its thing after the jpeg is generated, so the "Limit..." function might not work, and you'll be told a jpeg of a certain small size is not possible. For example, if your original contains 30KB of metadata, Lightroom won't start to make you a Jpeg of 20 KB.

If you're still with me, I think I have a workaround:

1-Make a jpeg with no metadata.
2-Without changing quality or size settings, make another jpeg from the same original with all metadata. Don't overwrite.
3-Figure out the difference in the sizes of the two resulting files. That's all metadata.
4-Add that metadata amount to the "Limit..." setting you really want, and switch on Wrangler.
The result should make you happy.
Unless it contains pictures from vastly varying times and processing, I think you can assume that all the pictures within a folder will contain about the same amount of metadata.

MB

[Michael Bailey]

Well, now I ought to amend what I said about the clever workaround. I have since practiced it on more files and find that the output files sizes jump around a bit, so my process is not as accurate as I'd hoped.

Too bad. Another good theory scuttled by fickle reality.

[Justinr]

Just a suggestion here and I have no idea as to whether it will work for you but when I am looking to batch resize images I use the PS 'Web Photo Gallery' function to downsize all the files. You can set image size and file quality and then process away. The folder produced will contain thumbnails and other bits'n'bobs that are not required so you can happily discard these leaving you with a sub folder labelled images which contains your freshly prepared pictures. I've no idea how small you can go with them but I find that medium quality leaves me a file of 30 - 40 kb for a 500px wide image. 

[Michael Bailey]

Oh...so close! Thank you for the suggestion, Justinr. That's a nice bit of lateral thinking! For this particular application I think it won't work, though, because Lightroom seems to restrict my images to a 300 pixel minimum. Possibly making my files into web thumbnails would do the trick, but I don't immediately see how to control them.

Granted, I'm only looking at Lightroom's HTML style. I don't have the patience to see what a Flash Gallery would do for me. (I still don't understand why Lightroom and the current Photoshops are so restrictive with web templates. To avoid their limitations, I have to switch back to CS-3 PS and Bridge just for the ease of making simple sites.)

As an update, I'll only mention that Metadata Wrangler continues to treat me right.

[mbalensiefer]

I use Exif Tag Remover 4.0.

 Generally speaking on most images you'll save ~5% on image size with a Photoshop .jpg quality setting of 9.