Affinity Photo - Compression LZW

[ahcarroll47]

Hello

Just wondering if anyone knows of a way to turn off the compression when exporting a JPEG file? If this is even possible...

I'm currently trying to upload my book cover to certain websites and even though when I look at the photo in preview it looks great, but when I upload it the thumbnails look awful (pixelated to the max). I've contacted support on these websites and they're advice so far is to up the DPI (which is currently at a 72) and turn off the LZW Compression.

Anyone know how to do that?

Thanks for the help !

Adam

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, ahcarroll47 said:

I've contacted support on these websites and they're advice so far is to up the DPI (which is currently at a 72) and turn off the LZW Compression.

This advice is worthless. DPI is irrelevant for web pages; what matters is pixel resolution (how many pixels the image contains). If your thumbnails contain too few pixels, they will look pixelated regardless of how much or little they are compressed.

 

There should be very little loss of detail at 85% or higher JPEG export quality. 

[toltec]

7 hours ago, ahcarroll47 said:

Hello

Just wondering if anyone knows of a way to turn off the compression when exporting a JPEG file? If this is even possible...

I'm currently trying to upload my book cover to certain websites and even though when I look at the photo in preview it looks great, but when I upload it the thumbnails look awful (pixelated to the max). I've contacted support on these websites and they're advice so far is to up the DPI (which is currently at a 72) and turn off the LZW Compression.

Anyone know how to do that?

Thanks for the help !

Adam

 

I don't know who you have been asking but there is no such thing as LZW for JPEG files. LZW is used for TIFF files, not JPEG

 

When you Export the file, in the Size section just double or triple the sizes. If you turn the compression to 100% it effectively turns  compression off but if you set the quality to 80% or above, the quality will almost never be noticeable but the file sizes will be much smaller.

 

 

What does the "Size" say before you change anything ?

[ahcarroll47]

On 2017-10-22 at 6:44 AM, R C-R said:

This advice is worthless. DPI is irrelevant for web pages; what matters is pixel resolution (how many pixels the image contains). If your thumbnails contain too few pixels, they will look pixelated regardless of how much or little they are compressed.

 

There should be very little loss of detail at 85% or higher JPEG export quality. 

 

On 2017-10-22 at 9:41 AM, toltec said:

 

I don't know who you have been asking but there is no such thing as LZW for JPEG files. LZW is used for TIFF files, not JPEG

 

When you Export the file, in the Size section just double or triple the sizes. If you turn the compression to 100% it effectively turns  compression off but if you set the quality to 80% or above, the quality will almost never be noticeable but the file sizes will be much smaller.

 

 

What does the "Size" say before you change anything ?

Heyo!!!!!

Thanks for your responses. So basically now they're telling me that when I saved the file I saved it as a Progressive JPEG format and that I should try saving it as a baseline instead....?

 

I've uploaded my file here and even though again in preview on my Mac it looks GREAT, here it looks gross lol.

Also I added what the thumbnail of my book cover looks like online.

 

I don't know if this would be the issue, but...when I originally created the file I picked Web as the type but then when I put in the pixel size (1600X2400) it changed the type to Devices and I can't get it to not do that. I'm not sure why it did that as I'm not super smart when it comes to this stuff but maybe that was it?

 

Otherwise I have no idea and I'm just assuming it's something to do with how I'm saving it or somethings happening when I'm uploading it.

Help me please lol

THANK YOU!

Adam

 

 

[toltec]

What exactly are you unhappy about?

 

The cover looks fine to me, although I have not seen the original so have nothing to compare it to.

 

The text "WHO CONTROLS YOU" is very sharp, even when the view is enlarged.

 

This is enlarged, a screen snapshot was made and then saved as 75% quality. You aren't going to get any better than that on the internet. In fact, I'm a bit surprised at how sharp the text is.

 

So what's the problem ?

 

The thumbnail is exactly that, a "thumbnail" so is normal for a thumbnail.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, ahcarroll47 said:

I've uploaded my file here and even though again in preview on my Mac it looks GREAT, here it looks gross lol.

Unless I am missing something, the only thing you uploaded were two JPEG files, both of which look good to me. It would help if you would either upload the .afphoto file or at least a screenshot of the export settings like in the reply from @toltec that you quoted.

 

3 hours ago, ahcarroll47 said:

I don't know if this would be the issue, but...when I originally created the file I picked Web as the type but then when I put in the pixel size (1600X2400) it changed the type to Devices and I can't get it to not do that.

That seems to be normal. I'm not sure why the type changes but it doesn't mean anything -- as long as the dimensions, color, etc. setting are appropriate for the intended use, there is nothing to worry about.

[MEB]

Hi ahcarroll47,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
The JPG format is best suited for continuous tone images (photographies, drawings) not so much for sharp edged/solid/flat colour artwork as the sample you posted. The reds are also particularly more problematic on JPG's which combined with the low resolution of a thumbnail image (which is downsampled) does degrade the quality a little. Since you probably don't have choice and must submit it as JPG setting the Quality slider to 100% is the best you can do to increase the quality. Being just a simple thumbnail the increase in size is not that significant. To control the type of the JPG (baseline) click the More button on the export dialog and make sure the progressive checkbox NOT ticked.

 

[ahcarroll47]

5 hours ago, toltec said:

What exactly are you unhappy about?

 

The cover looks fine to me, although I have not seen the original so have nothing to compare it to.

 

The text "WHO CONTROLS YOU" is very sharp, even when the view is enlarged.

 

This is enlarged, a screen snapshot was made and then saved as 75% quality. You aren't going to get any better than that on the internet. In fact, I'm a bit surprised at how sharp the text is.

 

So what's the problem ?

 

The thumbnail is exactly that, a "thumbnail" so is normal for a thumbnail.

Hello

Thanks for your response.

Here is two screenshots of what my book cover looks like online and what another cover looks like....

Mine doesn't look good lol you can barely read some of the words. Where everything is very clear on the other one.

Sorry if I'm not being clear enough lol 

Thanks for your help

Adam

[ahcarroll47]

4 hours ago, R C-R said:

Unless I am missing something, the only thing you uploaded were two JPEG files, both of which look good to me. It would help if you would either upload the .afphoto file or at least a screenshot of the export settings like in the reply from @toltec that you quoted.

 

That seems to be normal. I'm not sure why the type changes but it doesn't mean anything -- as long as the dimensions, color, etc. setting are appropriate for the intended use, there is nothing to worry about.

Hey

Thanks for the response.

Sorry I didn't know I could upload that.

Here it is. Also to be a little more clear here is examples of thumbnails and how the quality of mine is terrible compared to others.

 

Thanks

 

Adam 



Pawns eBook Cover.afphoto

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, ahcarroll47 said:

Also to be a little more clear here is examples of thumbnails and how the quality of mine is terrible compared to others.

1. Please don't post the same images more than once to a topic. There is no need for that & it just makes it harder to scroll through the replies looking for anything new or different.

2. Size for size, the text in both thumbnails are about the same. The 'New York Times' text blurb is maybe just a bit easier to read, but it also slightly larger type than you used & has higher contrast than your angled text.

3. As @toltec mentioned, these are just thumbnails, which are much lower resolution (have far fewer pixels) than full sized images. Text in thumbnails will never be very clear unless it is very large (uses many of the available pixels) -- for example note how "PAWNS" looks fine, even better than "DIVERGENT" in the other thumbnail.

[toltec]

To be brutally honest, it comes down to design choice. There is nothing you can do to improve the image quality.

 

If you put small black text on a dark red background it is always going to be a problem I'm afraid. Your black text is even very tough to read on the large image.

 

The same with the tiny (on a thumbnail) white text at a angle. If it was a bit bigger and straight, it would be easier. Or as easy as Divergent.

 

The reason the Divergent cover is easier to read is colour choice, not resolution and the fact the text is straight, not angled.

 

If you can, change it, if not you could perhaps lighten the red and increase the text size a bit. 

[ahcarroll47]

1 hour ago, toltec said:

To be brutally honest, it comes down to design choice. There is nothing you can do to improve the image quality.

 

If you put small black text on a dark red background it is always going to be a problem I'm afraid. Your black text is even very tough to read on the large image.

 

The same with the tiny (on a thumbnail) white text at a angle. If it was a bit bigger and straight, it would be easier. Or as easy as Divergent.

 

The reason the Divergent cover is easier to read is colour choice, not resolution and the fact the text is straight, not angled.

 

If you can, change it, if not you could perhaps lighten the red and increase the text size a bit. 

 

Thank you so much !!! 

 

I was just looking at it and started thinking “maybe it’s cause there’s a dark colour on top of another dark colour”

 

I’ll play with the colours and sizes and see what happens.

 

thanks