Bloated Flash from XaraX

[Klaus Nordby]

When I place a 66Kb JPG file in a XaraX document and export it as Flash format, the SWF file is 325 Kb! Since the same JPG file imported into Swish 1.5 and exported as SWF is only 20Kb (it recompresses the JPG and makes it look very bad, alas), this is a problem with XX's current implementation of SWF exports, and not a SWF problem!

So I hope Xara will work on fixing this, but by embedding the bitmap as it is without "messing" with it, as Swish does. It is a fairly safe bet that Flash is here to stay!


K

[Klaus Nordby]

When I place a 66Kb JPG file in a XaraX document and export it as Flash format, the SWF file is 325 Kb! Since the same JPG file imported into Swish 1.5 and exported as SWF is only 20Kb (it recompresses the JPG and makes it look very bad, alas), this is a problem with XX's current implementation of SWF exports, and not a SWF problem!

So I hope Xara will work on fixing this, but by embedding the bitmap as it is without "messing" with it, as Swish does. It is a fairly safe bet that Flash is here to stay!


K

[Erik Heyninck]

A 67K JPEG exported as SWF gives a 500K file.
A 567K TIF exported as SWF gives a 324K file.

?????????

[JZiehlke]

Hi,

I've found that when I take a picture in Xara, and resize and make any adjustments to it, then convert it to a bitmap within Xara, I can export it out as a Flash file that is reasonable size. At that point I import it into Flash and import the Swish text in as a separate layer, then have Flash put out a fairly small file with a reasonable quality picture. My trick with Swish is to import the graphic in the background, build the swish animation, delete the background and export out as an swf file. That way I'm having Flash build the picture on one layer, the animated text on another layer, and have a fairly reasonable file that is usually under 50kb.

Joan

[Klaus Nordby]

Erik:

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! INDEED!

This is one for Xara to look at - and fix!

K

[Sean Sedwards]

The size of the SWF file is related to the size of the raw bitmap data and how compressible it is, not to the size of the original file, which may or may not be compressed. The tif or jpg file is not embedded as-is but converted to bitmap and then compressed using the flash compatible algorithm (probably LZW, but I haven't checked).

To reduce the SWF file size you need to reduce the complexity of the original image, which means reducing the colours. I'd guess that the low file size versions mentioned above use just 256 colours (please tell me if I'm wrong). It's possible to make significant file size improvements by reducing a jpeg to 32K colours (no dithering) and further improvements by going to 256 colours with, then without, dithering. You'll have to decide what quality is acceptable.

Note that importing a file as a lower quality jpeg actually increases the complexity and therefore the file size. It's better to avoid jpegs altogether if the original isn't in that format.

Regards - Sean

[Mark Goodall]

Sean

You have just about described the problem.
Xara has to decompress bitmaps to render them and when it comes to export documents it has to decide how to compress bitmaps in the file, in the .xar export case it is capable of remembering the imported format of bitmaps and exporting them in the same format. In the .swf case Xara X is not remembering the imported format. So as a current fix I would suggest following Sean's suggestion and converting them to PNGs or similar.
SWF files can suppport .jpeg files.

Mark Goodall
Xara Ltd

[ivca]

I can understand why people are curious about the file size differential. What I can't understand, is why it is even an issue here. Isn't Flash a vector format???? I find the point rather spurious, if you are trying to reap only the (percieved) flash file size benefit, then complain that it's too big. If you "need" to put so called vector objects over bitmap, use Photoshop layers, and make a gif or jpeg ??

Wayne

[Erik Heyninck]

As I don't have Flash but do have Swish, I use the bitmap possibilities of this great app. (that Xara should consider associating with... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img].)

It gives me the possibility to, for example, make a bitmap appear and disappear. Doing this with GIF would be asking for file size trouble, as GIF isn't the right thing for continuous tone bitmaps like photographs etc.

Do look at most Flash sites: they also use the effects on bitmaps, so, because of Xara's bitmap possibilities, Klaus, who probably has Flash, wanted to use them, and was a little surprised to see the file size compared to that of SWF in Swish.

Xara does have the better bitmap possibilities of the two, but the file size makes them impossible to use, and that is what this topic is about. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[Erik Heyninck]

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]
I went to macromedia, downloaded the pdf manual, and read that bitmaps are traced in FLASH...
Swish will probably do the same...I'll examine and/or ask at swishzone.