Help with Avatar (staying within file size limit)

[Urko]

I'm trying to create a custom avatar but am having trouble fitting into the file size limit. 64 x 64 is easy enough to accomplish, but I can't seem to get it down to 4.9 kB - all my attempts so far have been around 40-50 kB. I'm reasonably competent at editing imagery in Photoshop, but don't know much about optimizing. Can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks,

Urko

 

[Dimwhit]

I can, if you can get it to me quickly (I'm heading out at abou 10am MST today). Email it to my @gmail.com account. Username: jwhitted

 

[Urko]

Email sent. Thanks!

 

[Ferret]

You could just save it as a Jpeg when you get the box that asks about quality knock it down untill the little writing (at the bottom) says somthing below 4.9kb

 

[DaveStebbins]

I found the big difference was leveling down the color pallette from 24 bit to 16 bit or even 8 bit. That made a huge difference for me.

 

[Mark]

I found the big difference was leveling down the color pallette from 24 bit to 16 bit or even 8 bit. That made a huge difference for me.

Yup. Oh, and look! You're using the same avatar as him, too!

 

[Urko]

Thanks for the advice, all. Problem resolved - Dimwhit set me up less than 30 min after I made the original post (my new custom logo is now fully functional). What a great forum!

I'm still mystified by the problem, but I'm guessing it is either PhotoShop or Mac related - that's what I was using to edit the image. Even after resizing to 64 X 64, making sure color parameters were more optimal and setting quality to zero it still came out around 50 k or so. After getting Dimwhit's help, I went home and tried again using MS PhotoEditor on a Windows machine. Result: about 3 k. Hmmm. Haven't tried PS on the Win machine, which would pin down whether it's the app or platform.

My (fairly unknowledgeable) guess is that my application or platform added some kind of extra formatting or something. My problem is solved, but for the sake of my intellectual curiosity, if anyone can shed any light, I'd be glad to know.

 

[Dimwhit]

I'm stumped, too, Urko, because I'm on a Mac and I used Photoshop to do it. Not sure why yours was being so stubborn. Are you using PS 7 or later on the Mac? Did you use the Save for Web command?

 

[Urko]

Eureka! Save for Web did the trick! 4k vs. 40 - much better.

I'm embarrased to say I was not really aware of that function before and have been saving the old fashioned way (time to do some tinkering with some web images!), this after using PhotoShop for more years than I care to say (since 3.0 at least!). I must admit that I'm surprised it makes so much of a difference - the only difference I can see between images created each way is that the normal save adds a preview. Does a preview really take up that much space?

Once again, thanks Dimwhit.

 

[der_kluge]

You damned, dirty ape!


(sorry, someone had to do it)