Skip to main content
C
Corniger
Inspiring
July 14, 2025
Question

8bit png quick export - ads white border after scaling, bad colors, AVIF? WEBP?

  • July 14, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 310 views

Hey there,

 

I need to export a multi-artboard file as pngs. Doing this via quick export.

  1. Chosing "png",
  2. "smaller file" and
  3. scaling them down by some percentage 

 

introduces a white/transparent border, because when scaling down PS apparently doesn't recalculate the image data, but the data previously calculated for web output. It also produces really bad colors -  like when exporting as GIF and not ticking "convert to sRgb". I remember from ye olde times png 8 was pretty much the same as GIF, some something must have happened here.


Also - since even LR can export AVIF (but not WEBP...) natively now, why are there no options in PS export for these formats everyone seems to want now? I really have to reopen the exported files in PS and resave as AVIF so I don't get a 150+KB file for a grey rectangle with some text? Or import them into LR so I can get this set up as a new, faster workflow? Or am I not grasping some concept there? I have to recycle pixel data here, otherwise I wouldn't even deal with this in PS.

 

Workflow ATM:

  1. "quick" export all files
  2. open all files in PS
  3. paint over the gap,
  4. resave,
  5. Save as AVIF
  6. hit enter, wait several seconds for AVIF output

 

of course I could create an action and run a script. but that's kind of ridiculous, I hope I'm doing something wrong.


Win 10, latest PS version 26.8.1

2 replies

C
CornigerAuthor
Inspiring
July 14, 2025

Hi Dave,

I know the differences between 8 and 24 bit png. But 8 bit png used to be a spitting image of GIF, and color conversion in GIF works just fine, whereas it doesn't in png. Anymore, at least.

When I have a file with 24 artboards, this becomes an extremely tedious process. Even if I weren't saving as AVIF, I'd get white/transparent gaps I have to manually paint over (!).

 

The AVIF have, at the current settings, good color reproduction and around 15-20% size of a correctly displaying 24 bitpng. So it should be a no-brainer to have them included in web export - especially since LR can do it.

davescm
Community Expert
davescmCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 14, 2025

PNG8 is very different from PNG 24. Instead of each pixel using any of the values in RGB 0 to 255 to show the colour, which gives a possible 16 million variations for each pixel, PNG8 uses indexed colour. That means the colours are contained in a look up table and there can be a maximum of 256 across the entire document. Each pixel contains an 8 bit value which indicates which colour in that look up table (i.e. index) to use. Unsurprisingly this can result in loss of colour, banding and other visual artifacts, although it does of course cut down the file size considerably.

Photoshop Export functions were designed orignally for web use and, as you say, do not contain all the file options available today. Save a Copy gives access to AVIF and WebP saving in the current version.

I see no advantage, but a few disadvantages, in converting a document to an indexed colour file then converting it back to the AVIF format. You may be better to save a copy directly to AVIF, using an action/script if you are doing this in bulk.

Dave

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices