Image file size contradictions....

**letsgofishing** · 27 February 2014, 01:15 PM

Using WD9Premium....
Was uploading hundreds of new images for my clients' art gallery site using FileZilla.
I noticed that a lot of images were over 600kb in size. All the images pop up to a max height of 700px or a max width of1000px depending on whether they are portrait or landscape.
A 200kb image looks great in the pop up, so there's no need to go much larger.
So I started optimizing the large images in WD9P - each image sits on a white rectangle with a grey 2px border.
I've attached screen captures from Windows 7 explorer and the WD9 Optimize interface - there are radical differences in reported sizes - for the attached image (actual pic + white square with grey border), Explorer reports it as 1 138kb and if I go to WD9, go the optimize dialogue box, the size of just the actual pic shows as 221 337bytes! Watching FileZilla upload, the file sizes are the same as in explorer (obviously I guess).
Can any one help me - which file sizes do I go with and in your experience, what is an "more than good enough" image size bearing in mind the sizes of the pop-ups?
Many thanks,
Mike

PS: the website is http://www.westcoastartgallery.co.za if you want to check out the pop-ups....

**gwpriester** · 27 February 2014, 02:18 PM

Your images have been optimized as PNG which is causing the problem.

Unfortunately, I am not sure if you can optimize all images as JPEG 85% or if you need to do this one image at a time.

PNG is a superior file format, but considerable larger in file size.

I imported one of the painting images #5268.png and exported it as JPEG. The file size of the PNG is 1.08 MB. The JPEG is 189K

The image quality is basically the same.

**letsgofishing** · 27 February 2014, 02:32 PM

Thanks for the reply GW....but I still don't understand the huge discrepancy in file sizes as reported by Explorer and the WD9 optimize dialogue....
So could I just open each image from Explorer in say FastStone Image Viewer and then resize them and save them as .jpgs as opposed to using the WD9 optimize option?

**handrawn** · 27 February 2014, 02:50 PM

the xara dialog shows file size of 800x756 but the same file on the website is bigger than that, which in itself would cause a difference in file size [given 96dpi]

I can't say any more than that, because I am not a website builder... leave that to Gary and co....

**handrawn** · 27 February 2014, 02:58 PM

1,000px × 933px (scaled to 981px × 916px) - it has a box round it..... [the posted image will be reduced, which confuses things, but you can see the border, which is all part of the image]

Edit - ok re-reading I see the border is intentional - but the file is still bigger in pixels on the site than that reported in the dialog box....

**gwpriester** · 27 February 2014, 05:53 PM

No, you want to do the optimizing in Web Designer and then republish the site.

I think you can right click on each thumbnail and select Optimize Photo. JPEG, 85% 96dpi

I just tried optimizing all images and it does not appear to work properly on PNG images.

**letsgofishing** · 28 February 2014, 04:18 AM

Originally Posted by handrawn

1,000px × 933px (scaled to 981px × 916px) - it has a box round it..... [the posted image will be reduced, which confuses things, but you can see the border, which is all part of the image]

Edit - ok re-reading I see the border is intentional - but the file is still bigger in pixels on the site than that reported in the dialog box....

....yes - that's the bit that puzzles me...

**letsgofishing** · 28 February 2014, 04:19 AM

Originally Posted by gwpriester

No, you want to do the optimizing in Web Designer and then republish the site.

I think you can right click on each thumbnail and select Optimize Photo. JPEG, 85% 96dpi

I just tried optimizing all images and it does not appear to work properly on PNG images.

OK - thanks GW

**letsgofishing** · 28 February 2014, 05:59 AM

This is driving me mad....select a photo and optimize it,,,save and export the site.....go to Explorer....file is still the same size and is a .png!
Makes no sense at all!
Then looked at the pop-up properties - almost all the images on the site are .png's not .jpgs. In the pop-up dialogue, I noticed that "let Xara web designer 9 premium choose the type automatically" was checked. Changed this to "jpeg best for photos" and voila - problem solved.
I am VERY surprised that Xara would choose to export as a .png seeing tat the combined "image is 90% photo and 10% a white box vector with grey border....