Best format for screen shots?

Thomas McGrath III 3mcgrath at adelphia.net
Tue Jul 13 23:25:51 EDT 2004


Paul,
I had better reduciton results with the png files than with the jpg 
files. Less blocky patterns when reduced. Also if you know what your 
finished desired size is then run the file through an external app like 
Photoshop for file size reduction. Rev is not that great at doing the 
reductions itself. I was able to have all of my png files at 75 % of 
screen shot size. I would say that png's are closer to bitmaps then 
jpgs. Tiff files of course being the best for image quality but with a 
much larger size. Jpg files have the broadest range of 
enlargement/reduction but with some garbage thrown into the image when 
in low files size mode. BMP files are the most accepted file format 
with less of a file size than tiffs but more than High jpgs.

All in all if I am doing high quality work where size is not a problem 
I use tif files. If I am doing just web based then I use jpg or pngs 
and sometimes gifs. If I am doing CD work than I use mostly png's but 
will use jpg's for smaller file sizes. For photo manipulation I only 
use tif files at 300 DPI and at least 200% of original size then after 
the retouch I then reduce either the DPI for non print jobs or the 
percentage for layout work etc. For Large CD project I will reduce both 
and convert to PNG or JPG.

In my cross platform tests I found that BMP, JPG, work in more 
applications (commercial and non-commercial products) with png and 
tiffs coming in a close second for most commercial applicaitons.

Just remember if printing is not an issue than 72 DPI is enough but if 
printing High quality then go to 300 DPI but if space is an issue than 
150 DPI will definitely be enough. Lastly using the same color pallet 
will make screen redraws faster and is a must for any transitions.

HTH

Tom

On Jul 13, 2004, at 6:53 PM, SimPLsol at aol.com wrote:

> Tom,
> Thank you for the advice.
> I have never worked with png files. I understand that they are like a 
> "super
> GIF", similar format, more colors. Do you know if pngs are bitmaps? I 
> would
> like a format that scales well.
> So far, for everyone following this thread, the most important thing 
> I've
> learned is: keep the images full sized, if possible. Reducing the 
> screenshots to
> 75% caused more problems than using any of the formats I've tried.
> Paul Looney
> _______________________________________________
> use-revolution mailing list
> use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
>
>

Thomas J. McGrath III
SCS
1000 Killarney Dr.
Pittsburgh, PA 15234
412-885-8541



More information about the use-livecode mailing list