Because my flist is so knowledgable..

[ash48]

I know. I ask a lot of questions. I've learned over time that that's the best way for me to learn and a great way to get info relevant to LJ.

This time I have one for the picspammers.

I have actually opened up Photoshop and I AM PLAYING! \o/ I have figured out how to size and colour and I'm damn excited about that.

The question is. What is a good and reasonable size (kb/mb) for an image? I have no idea if I should be aiming for a say 300kb file or lower. Higher? Obviously the higher the better for quality, but what is consider too big? I suspect if a picspam is too big it would take the average person too long to dl the images. Yeah?

And umm... png or jpeg? Argh! New learning curve.

Also *HUGS* everyone for the show/tell info. SO awesome. I learned heaps. Mostly that writing seems hard!

Comments

[rhymephile.livejournal.com]

First, since you've never played with PS before, I would go check out icon_tutorial. There in the tags you will find tutorials for all the basics. I realize you're making stuff for Tumblr and not icons, but the preparation is mostly the same. It will teach you how to get the best-looking images possible. It will teach you how to crop and use layers and resize things. Using tutorials is how I learned.

In the PS menu go to Image > Image Size. There it will tell you everything about your image. Here is where you can resize it, and change the resolution.

When you're ready to save, go to File > Save for Web (or Save for Web and Devices depending on your version of PS). Here you will see a window, and at the top you will see tabs that read Original, Optimized, 2-Up, and 4-Up. This is PS giving you all the possible ways to make your image smaller. Click on 2-Up, and it will present you with your original, and a compressed file of what you created, so you can see it side by side to make sure the image is still a good quality.

Click on 4-Up, and it will present you with three different compressed versions, along with the original so you can compare.

Ideally, you want to save in png because it is the highest quality (after you open the Save for Web window, on the far right of the window you can choose what file type you want to save as in a drop-down menu). If you absolutely need to reduce the size of the file, you can use jpg.

[ash48.livejournal.com]

Wow thanks.

It won't be for Tumblr though, just for LJ - some picspams I am preparing. :)

That's very helpful. I saw the 2-Up etc and had no idea what that meant. Ok. So, PNG then.

Thank you SO much. It's beginning to make some sense. <33