File compression on export

[Mr Lucky]

The one thing I miss with photoshop is the ability to get smaller file sizes that still look OK, I'm finding this especially with gif files. I could get them really small for the web without too much serious quality loss.

 

I would export from Affinity to tiff or high quality jgp, then further reduce for web uploading with a dedicated compression app. 

 

Can anyone recommend a good (inexpensive) app that I can use for this.

 

howver, ideally, Affinity would be able to do this (with an export preview)

[Alfred]

GIF options are very limited. Wouldn't it be better to use PNG instead?

[Mr Lucky]

GIF options are very limited. Wouldn't it be better to use PNG instead?

 

I don't know. Options look the same as gif to me. 

[Alfred]

I don't know. Options look the same as gif to me. 

 

PNG can have as many colours as JPEG, but it also offers an alpha channel supporting variable transparency. GIF only supports indexed transparency (i.e. one of the colours in the palette is nominated as the 'transparent' colour, so transparency is either fully on or fully off). GIF is also only 8 bits per pixel, so you have a maximum of 256 colours including the 'transparent' colour. In most cases, PNG files are smaller (typically up to 25% smaller) than their GIF equivalents.

[Fixx]

GIF is just perfect for many purposes. PNG is not always suitable.

[Alfred]

Perhaps it's indicative of the sheltered life I've led, but I cannot think of a situation in recent years where a PNG would not have been just as suitable as a static GIF.

[Mr Lucky]

Perhaps it's indicative of the sheltered life I've led, but I cannot think of a situation in recent years where a PNG would not have been just as suitable as a static GIF.

 

Where you already have a gif online, and there are lots of links to that gif, but you want to replace it so it has to be the same file name or else you have to contact all those sites linking to it and ask them to change the link because you changed the name of the file. And you don't want to do an .htaccess redirect because (a) it's a faff, and (b) some SSL sites will not display it via proxy image if there is a redirect.

 

Does that make sense?

[Alfred]

Does that make sense?

 

Of course it makes sense, but what you're describing is a special case. Webmasters are generally more likely to discourage hotlinking than encourage it unless they're hosting something like a library of emoticons, but what's important in your proposed scenario is keeping the entire file name the same, not just the file type: replacing the file 'mr-lucky.gif' with 'mr-unlucky.gif' would be just as bad as replacing it with 'mr-lucky.png'. If I'm starting from scratch and I don't need animation, I'll choose PNG rather than GIF every time.

[Mr Lucky]

Of course it makes sense, but what you're describing is a special case. Webmasters are generally more likely to discourage hotlinking than encourage it unless they're hosting something like a library of emoticons, but what's important in your proposed scenario is keeping the entire file name the same, not just the file type: replacing the file 'mr-lucky.gif' with 'mr-unlucky.gif' would be just as bad as replacing it with 'mr-lucky.png'. If I'm starting from scratch and I don't need animation, I'll choose PNG rather than GIF every time.

 

Yes, but my question is in regard to my scenario, where I need gifs. Hotlinking is a reality whether or or not

webmasters discourage it.

 

I even use it to my advantage if I have hotlinked images from my own site on various forums.

 

So I think my original question is valid I believe, whether or not pngs may be better than gifs. Sadly it seems there isn't an an answer except for me to go back to Photoshop for this purpose

[Herbert123]

GIF is just perfect for many purposes. PNG is not always suitable.

 

The only two reasons to use GIF nowadays is either for animation support or if your graphic is extremely tiny (=< hundreds of bytes, with only a few colours), in which case GIF produces smaller file sizes. (Of course, as Mr. Lucky pointed out, another reason might be that an older existing popular GIF file must be replaced online).

 

In other cases, PNG yields smaller file sizes in 99% of cases, and is the best choice. It does also depend on the optimization tool that is used. For PNG ColorQuantizer is currently the best tool.

[Mr Lucky]

The only two reasons to use GIF nowadays is either for animation support or if your graphic is extremely tiny (=< hundreds of bytes, with only a few colours), in which case GIF produces smaller file sizes.

 

Also in my case the files need very few colours, they are scans of photocopies of maps - so maybe a few greyscale colours.

 

using the restrictive palette in the Photoshop "save for web" gave me much smaller file size wit good enough quality than I can get from Affinity.

 

I agree that in general and for other purposes I tend to use 8 bit png or 24 bit png if transparency without a fixe matte is required

[Alfred]

Also in my case the files need very few colours, they are scans of photocopies of maps - so maybe a few greyscale colours.

 

Have you looked at the 'More...' options for AD's GIF export? If you restrict the number of colours to 32 or fewer, you will reduce the file size considerably.

[Herbert123]

I agree - restricting the number of colours for greyscale images potentially saves considerable file size.

 

As for black&white or grayscale scans at higher resolutions: my testing always proved that PNG wins over GIF in these cases. The same 600ppi b&w scan is 152kb PNG, and 176kb GIF.

 

However, I must amend my answer with WebP: the same document saved as a non-lossy WebP file results in a 103kb file!

 

WebP is awesome. It combines the best of JPG, PNG, and GIF in one file format for the web. Even animation is supported. A crying shame only Chrome and Opera support this format at this point in time. Although Firefox and IE are experimenting with support.

 

I'll be happy when we can finally get rid of crappy antiquated JPG. It is terrible compared to what is possible with WebP - both in quality AND file size.

 

If you are developing for Android, no question about it: save your images as WebP (which is still not possible in Affinity, but it is supported in alternatives).