Reducing PNG file size?

[Kurt8]

Hello,

I use Xara Xtreme to put together headers for my web projects. These are usually a mix of text and imported jpeg images on a solid background. I have found that I get best results with the text when I export the finished product to PNG. Export to jpeg loses too much quality in the text. I'm happy with my PNG exports but the file sizes are a bit large for web graphics. Is there any way to reduce these file sizes? I have found a free application called PNG Crush which supposedly does this but when I run the file through it it comes out at the same file size. Any ideas on reducing PNG file sizes?

Thanks in advance.

Kurt

[remi]

You can try to export PNG files with only 256 colours, in order to reduce the file size. But it depends on your drawing, whether the result looks fine.

Another idea is to export your drawing as Flash (SWF) file. The originial idea of Flash was, to act as a vector format and vector files are small, as long as you don't include bitmaps (or use bitmap effects like Xara Xtreme's shadow tool).

If you export JPEG files together with a high quality percent value, the size of JPEG files is not much lesser than PNG files.

Personally, I use PNG files most of the time in my projects.

Regards,
Remi

[handrawn]

since png files produced by xara are already compressed - trying to compress them again is not likely to work well if at all IMO.

like Remi I use png a lot, the advantage being the compression is lossless with the file size about as good as it gets for this.

[ss-kalm]

Kurt8,

What do you call big? What are the dimensions and the file sizes we are talking about? Normally PNG file sizes are well within acceptable limits.

[Kurt8]

Thanks for the feedback so far. Sorry, I should have been more specific about dimensions and file size.

Well, my latest header was 790X180 pixels and exported to 100kb at the highest PNG setting. I personally find that a bit large for web graphics in a header but maybe I'm just fussy.

I have tried the 256 colors export and sometimes that works, but when I have image files integrated into the header the compression becomes unacceptable.

Kurt

[Suvek]

You can try to mix JPEG with PNG text. If you dont need everything perfectly clear you can split image to JPEG background and PNG (256) text elements.

[haakoo]

Hi,

Exporting as swf is an option.
In swishmax you can make the bitmap compressed again with jpg compression
but maintain the png transparency
And use your txt as vector shapes which will remain at 0 or 1/2 kb each

Hans

[Kurt8]

Would converting all elements (including imported jpegs) to editable shapes BEFORE exporting to PNG make the file smaller? Why don't I just give that a try...

Kurt

[ss-kalm]

790X180 pixels at 100k doesn't seem too far out of line to me, I would expect it to be a little lower if it was 256 colours but don't know image. You can also probably get it smaller as a gif, but will lose some quality. Typically I try to keep my graphics below 50k, but 790 wide is a reasonably sizeable graphic.

[Kurt8]

At 256 I'm down to 35kb which is fine in my book. For some images 256 doesn't give me enough quality though...

Kurt