(Loading & Saving, Drag & Drop) SAVING IMAGES

Click here to show the Save Screen.

If you have made some adjustments to a photo and you want to save it, then you can click on the button that looks like a Floppy Disk on the Quick Tools panel. When you click the SAVE button, the SAVE WINDOW is displayed.

This is NOT your typical type-a-name, select-a-format, click-enter-done type of saving screen. There is so much more useful functionality on this window to make your life easier.

First of all, there are 2 things that always irritate when using the typical saving routine. And of course this saving routine solves BOTH problems.

You can't see the file size UNTIL after you save the file

You can't see the quality UNTIL after you save the file

1. SELECT A FILE FORMAT:

BMP: This file format keeps all the quality (loss-less) and the file sizes can be huge. This saves using 24-bit format.

JPG: This file format keeps a specified amount of quality (lossy) and the saved file sizes are MUCH smaller. At 97% quality, you should not be able to see a difference in quality from BMP, which is perfect quality. This saves using 24-bit format. See JPG Quality tips.

GIF: This file format loses some quality (lossy), but saves images as 256 color files. For LINE-ART or ILLUSTRATIONS, GIF is the best format. For photos, it's useful only if you NEED GIF format. This saves using 8-bit format.
NOTE: There is a GIF Dither Mode that allows you to pick either "Dither" or "No Dither". If it's line-art or illustrations with lots of solid color, then pick "No Dither" for a cleaner looking image. Dither basically sprinkles colors on the image from a bucket of only 256 colors. And by sprinkling properly, you can make a photo appear very good.

PNG: This file format keeps all the quality (loss-less) and the file sizes are much smaller than BMP (less than half the size), but still larger than JPG typically. Click here for details on PNG format.
NOTE: For LINE-ART or ILLUSTRATIONS the file sizes can be very very small and perfect quality. Much better choice than GIF format. For photos, no loss in quality but still much larger than JPG. This saves using 24-bit format.

2. SELECT KEEP CAMERA INFORMATION:
Check this checkbox if you want to keep any camera related information like shutter speed, ISO or flash settings etc. This information is called EXIF Camera information. Typically, you will want to keep this information so that later on you can tell what camera settings were used to take the photo. If you want a super small file size and don't care about the info, then UN-Check the checkbox. Keeping the information increases the file size by a few KB. Only JPG and PNG keep the EXIF Camera Information. So, if you save as BMP or GIF, you WILL lose this information. Don't worry too much about this because Photo Jockey has the ability to Restore EXIF Camera Information. It takes EXIF Camera Info from a photo and then pastes that EXIF Camera Info into a photo that had lost its info. Of course it's best to restore the EXIF Info from the original photo so that the EXIF Camera Info won't be lying about your camera settings:)

3. SELECT KEEP ORIGINAL FILE DATE:
Check this checkbox if you want the original file's modified date to be used.

4. SELECT KEEP ORIGINAL FILENAME:
Check this checkbox if you want the original filename to be used.

5. CLICK SAVE (Overwrite):
Click this button to quickly save and overwrite the current image. This is a quick way to update your edits to a file.

6. CLICK SAVE FILE AS...:
If you don't want to use the same filename, then use this saving option. Once you have selected all the options you want, then click "Save File As". Then pick a filename and click save.

7. DEFAULT SETTINGS:
Since the save feature remembers the settings from the last save operation, you can restore the settings to default values by clicking this button.

TIP: For your convenience, the settings you use to save the file are REMEMBERED so that the next time you go to save an image, it uses the same settings. You can of course restore default settings if you wish.

HELPFUL HINTS:

Estimating File Size:
You can bounce around selecting different file formats and you will see the "Estimated Size:" change to reflect what the file size WOULD be if saved as the selected file format.

Viewing Quality Changes:
If you are interested in seeing what the quality looks like for a particular format, just look at the bottom portion of the saving window where there is a preview. MAKE SURE the zoom level is set to at least 400%. Then click on BMP file type and then click the file type you are interested in using. You should be able to see subtle changes in the preview indicating the amount of quality that you would lose. This is because BMP does not lose quality. To get the hang of this, select JPG quality of 40% and watch the preview and then click on the BMP format. You will see a pretty dramatic change in quality.

Estimating JPG Quality %:
For JPG format, try using the 97% quality FIRST, and then click 92, then 74, then 60, then 40. And when you detect too much loss in quality, then stop lowering the quality. Basically, go as low as YOU think is acceptable. It's not always a good idea to use 97%. 97% uses more disk space while not always giving you more apparent quality. You may frown, but consider this. Let's say you start with a POOR image. Then you want to save it, well (now you smile) you may only need a quality of 75% to match the quality of the poor image :)

As you lower the quality you should see the image becoming worse (more blocky), especially on high quality images. If your source image is pretty low quality to start with, then you may need to lower the quality setting a bunch before you notice the quality of the image going away.

HINT: You should be looking at an area in which there is high contrast, like along the edge of something in the photo, like a face or arm etc.

EXIF Camera Information:
Click here to learn about EXIF Camera Information.

JPG QUALITY NOTE:
When you save in the JPG format and use a quality of at least 80%, then adjoining pixels are NOT blended. This makes it GREAT for photos, and pretty good even for line art and bar charts (images with lots of solid colored areas). Now, if you go below 80% quality, then adjoining pixels ARE blended. For photos, you won't notice this too much, but for line and bar charts you WILL see the blended edges and thus the quality is reduced. This is not really a bad thing because if you pick a quality of less than 80% then you are not interested in the highest quality image either. If you save with a quality of 97%, you can re-edit/save the image at least 20 times before you notice ANY deterioration of the image quality! Of course if you use 92%, you WILL notice after about 3 edits (if you look REAL close). Once you get into the 80's quality, it's not a good idea to re-edit/save the images with that low of a quality.

TECHNICAL MYTHS:
It's no secret that the BMP format produces the largest files and doesn't lose any quality. It's also no secret that JPG typically loses a little quality and saves a ton of disk space. What IS A SECRET is that BMP is not always the best format to use if you plan the re-edit the image a few times. As a matter of fact, if you save with JPG with 97% quality you can re-edit the image at least 20 times before you notice ANY deterioration of the image!!! The myth is that you should always use BMP if you plan on re-editing the image. The actual truth is this... Use PNG or BMP if you are working with line-art or illustrations that you plan on re-editing many times. If you are working with photos, use JPG with a quality of 97%. The exception to the rule is this...If you plan on editing with OTHER photo editing software, then go ahead and use BMP, because some of these other softwares don't have the ability to set 97% quality. But if you plan on doing all your changes in Photo Jockey, then use JPG. Photo Jockey has plenty of photo editing built in. Color balancing, Rotation adjustments, Sharpening, Smoothing, Text Box additions, Company Logo insertion, and Resizing etc. See Photo Jockey Editing features.




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