To all designers; consider how you save images (1 Viewer)

[joz]

Hi you designers out there,

I'm working on my own skin atm and noticed that a lot of images out there being used in MP skins are not optimized whatsoever.
It has a lot of meta data within some PNG images which I find totally not necessary. I used PNGGauntlet on my skin to remove all unnecessary data.
You might think this is a little exaggerated and maybe you're right but as a programmer I find this something to improve on.
In total it saved me 4.5MB on the total media folder. About 25% reduction.
This will speed up creating cache most likely. I do not know if MP handles it as PNGGauntlet does (removing unnecessary data while creating cache) but if not it could also slightly speed up MP itself.

If you use photoshop the same can be achieved by doing a "Save for web and devices"

 

[explodedk]

i use photoshop to save for web since it removes all extra data... another good thing when saving in photoshop delete all layers that you might have invinsible since they also take up space.

 

[joz]

another good thing when saving in photoshop delete all layers that you might have invinsible since they also take up space.

I guess you're pointing to PSD file size then right? The save for web PNG will discard the layers anyways and just create a flat image, kinda like pixel data.

 

[explodedk]

okay... i just noticed that filesize is bigger when having hidden layers...

 

[AIstudio]

Very good point!!


When saving, exporting or anything from a drawing package you should ALWAYS flatten, crop and purge your image before final output. That's why you should have a working file/ template and a finished file. You should also be wary of color space and formats. These can have a BIG effect on the final output. Its nice having a small file size, but not at the expense of quality and colour correctness. The web colour space is awful !!!

Good post though as I am sure there will be LOTS of people out there who would not know about this. The larger and heavier the work, the bigger the problem becomes. CAD is even worse if you don't know how to use the program.

That's why there are designers, then there are DESIGNERS

Some people class themselves as a designer because they have opened a program lol.

Regards

Kev

 

[ltfearme]

Apart from the defaults, are there any other settings that are worth playing around with in PNGGauntlet?