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Participating Frequently
June 17, 2015
Answered

"Save for web" as "legacy" in Photoshop CC (2015)?

  • June 17, 2015
  • 14 replies
  • 66989 views

Anyone know (a) why "save for web" is now "legacy" (under export) and (b) whether anything will replace it?

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Correct answer Average_Rob

I know, it sucks. this is what i've found:

As of the 2015 release of Photoshop CC, the File > Save For Web option has been moved to File > Export > Save For Web (Legacy) alongside newer export options.

To learn about these new export options, see Export artboards, layers, and more.

and this is the link that it will take you:

Photoshop Help | Export artboards, layers, and more

it is related to the new artboards option that they have.


14 replies

Participant
April 28, 2016

So those of us who use Save for Web because email are out of luck?

Inspiring
November 6, 2015

I'd like to add my voice.

I really like the new save as assets functionality. In some workflows it is excellent!

However, I often will do simple tasks that don't really require the saving of a psd and the use the save for web to create a jpeg for a client etc. In order to do this I now have to either create a psd first or use cntrl-shift-slt-s. I don't really want to litter my pc with lots of necessary, small psds that I would then want to delete -creating more steps in the workflow.

At the moment I can quickly save out - butt the word 'legacy' worries me.

Please can we have the save to web back?

Inspiring
November 6, 2015

of course I meant 'unnecessary' not necessary

Known Participant
August 1, 2015

This once fine application (Photoshop) is being ruined - year by year. Great features are being removed. New ones which are yielding poor results are being added. Performance is degrading on OS X so badly that I am using Affinity Photo more and more.

That said, this is not just photoshop and it is NOT just me. I use this app professionally and have numerous of colleagues urging the same concerns. One had a personal meeting with adobe in their Hamburg office expressing his concerns.

He said 'The spirit' once present in those offices was completely gone. Almost appeared as if they were bewildered.

I too am VERY bewildered. Very. And although Affinity (IMO) is NOT quite 'there' yet. They have definitely realized that adobe is loosing ground big time and they are picking where adobe left off.

And their software is amazing and although I have been using adobe since about 23 years I cannot wait for the day where I can cancel my adobe subscription and deinstall all that software that keeps getting slower and slower and performs worse and worse.

Sad Sad Times, in my life concerning my Professional Work Software. Who would have thought that this company would hit such an all time low !

Inspiring
July 9, 2015

Yes I know. They brought "Artboards" to photoshop. Now when i resize the canvas, what I've worked on disappears until it shrink the screen to find where in heck it has moved. A lot in the CC 2015 programs seem like downgrades and losing features we use a lot.

Adobe would do much better if they listened to users rather than shelving features that are used in favor of things we don't need. Premiere Pro CC 2015 is a clear example of ruining what worked in CC 2014.

I'm rolling back to a photoshop that works like i want it and not the way adobe wants it. We shouldn't have to pay $60 per month for programs with features we don't want.

Participant
June 29, 2015

Excellent responses all. I am bitterly dissapointed that Adobe has made such a dramatic change with no immediately obvious equivalent (or God forbid an enhanced equivalent). To say that this is negatively affecting my workflow is an understatement.

3catzAuthor
Participating Frequently
June 30, 2015

Now how to get Adobe to become aware of this?

Herbert2001
Inspiring
June 30, 2015

Of course the Photoshop dev team is aware of these issues. They just did not have enough time to finish the features for CC2015's release date (which was probably enforced on them from higher up the command chain).

Next version things will have improved. Things are always tough during times of transition.

dugfresh36
Participating Frequently
June 26, 2015

i am in agreement with a lot of the users above who were completely let down by this news. SFW is an integral part of our workflow and with this Export As feature replacing SFW, they have just dragged that workflow into the street and brutally killed it.

i want to like it. i want to think of it as an improvement over the old method; a new tool that will boost productivity, even if there is a learning curve...i don't mind that. but right now, it has done nothing but have me 'seeing red'.

i gave it a real-world test, exporting a layer group that made up a header banner. in our workflow, we create the designs, then draw the slices around them. so, previous export using SFW was accomplished quickly and flawlessly by defining the area of the asset with a slice. a split-second shortcut key combo later, i'm selecting a custom export profile from a pulldown menu and hitting "save." done.

using Export As, i right click on that layer group to export. ok, not bad, i can handle that. but then i get a non-resizable dialog with extremely minimalistic settings. it defaults to PNG, so i select JPG. no biggie, but also no presets to choose from. so i then have to set the quality manually—another step—to 70%. because i can't make out the detail of my image (it's zoomed out to 50%) i have to zoom in to 100%—another step again— and then drag my image over in the pane to see the left edge—yet another step—because i thought i saw something that wasn't quite right.

and at 100%, it's confirmed...the image bounds are not the same as my slice bounds. i glance over at the canvas size settings and they're displaying the correct size. why? it is obviously NOT the correct size, or my dotted border wouldn't be flush with the edge of the image...there should be white space.

i go ahead and finish the export anyway, crossing my fingers...but to no avail: the resulting image was too small, dimension-wise.

i get why this is happening, this image-boundaries disparity. but the fix? i now have to create a layer the exact dimensions and position of my desired final image...you know, like i easily did with my slice. this layer has to be duplicated and stuck into each of my 10 layer groups (for each different header). also, setting this layer's fill or opacity to 0% has no effect on influencing the dimensions of the image to be exported...it just makes it like the layer doesn't even exist. luckily, i can set it to white because it's going to be on a white page, but what if i needed it to be a transparent PNG in case this asset is used elsewhere on the site and may end up on top of a colored background? guess what...you're out of luck.

yes, i can 'shape' the dimensions of the image by using the canvas dimensions setting, but this adds (or subtracts) white space equally from each edge...keeping the image centered, which doesn't work if your resulting image is supposed to be intentionally off-center.

and that is that. adjust canvas with no way to adjust the design's X/Y position within that canvas. done.

the thing with slices is that they 'force' the boundaries of the export area—regardless of the actual layer or layer group bounds. pretty handy, i think.

what i find even more alarming than a simple, effective process being completely derailed, is this quality difference at the same settings that people are noticing. this feature should have been labeled "preview" as it was nowhere NEAR being ready for release to the masses.

i understand that all of this can supposedly be used in conjunction with artboards, but i gotta tell ya...i'm not holding out any hope for that solution, either.

i am open to hearing others' thoughts on how to solve this, though.

mark_chief
Participant
February 8, 2016

EXACTLY.

Herbert2001
Inspiring
June 22, 2015

And good riddance too, I'd say. The old SFW function was completely unusable for proper PNG optimization. Nor was there any individual control for chroma subsampling when exporting jpg images. No webP support either!

Trouble is, the current 2015 version does not offer a functional export assets option either, I believe?

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/extract-assets-feature-is-a-disaster

I don't really get it! How did you remove the feature to export assets in Photoshop 2015??? It wasn't perfect but it was…

So what are web devs and designers supposed to do in the meantime? The Photoshop dev team removes one widely used feature, and no alternative is offered? Naming layers with generator is not exactly user friendly. Right-mouse clicking layers to save files is too limited.

I was under the impression that the CC digital serfdom model would publish new versions when and if they were production ready - obviously this is not the case, and Adobe is back to its "Big Reveal" model, no matter whether features are finished or not.

How disappointing indeed.

sonofmrsnak
Inspiring
June 22, 2015

So why wasn't all this spiffy new image export enhancement simply done within the existing framework of SFW?

It would have been intuitive and allowed the developers to play all they wanted with improvements.

Other types of exports are simply that. Leave the web export functions separate.


Herbert2001
Inspiring
June 23, 2015

I agree - the SFW has basically remained the same since Photoshop 5.5 first introduced it, and it could have seen so many improvements in the last 15 years. Of course, it never happened, for some reason or other.

Participating Frequently
June 22, 2015

This just out by Adobe:

Save for Web in Photoshop CC 2015

Participating Frequently
June 22, 2015

I was about to bash the decision for moving Save for Web (SFW) and replacing with Export As .  However I have spent some time looking at the optimization impact of Export As.  It looks like you get up to a 60% reduction in file size.  That is a huge gain.  You may want to take a moment and review my article to appreciate this new feature.  It maybe NOT BE the best solution for those who need to configure SFW with metada or embed color profile sRGB...but the savings are real and the quality remains the same.  I am running the same image in my full screen slider processed with SFW photoshop 2014 vs Export as Photoshop CC 2015 and the Slides look identical, but 'export as' has a 200KB reduction!  All the best and I hope this helps with your transition over to 2015 CC

http://fritzimages.com/blog/2015/photoshop-cc-2015-export-as-jpeg/26839/ 

Chris Cox
Legend
June 22, 2015

You're drawing a false comparison because you are saving at different JPEG quality levels, and reduced quality levels will be smaller.

Your Export As example image is missing a lot of edge detail/sharpness, indicating that it was saved at a lower quality level.

Participating Frequently
June 22, 2015

Hi Chris,

thanks for your response.  I am still trying to understand where my analysis breaks down from your point of view.

My Master Image has been prepared before Save as or Export as . The Image is resized down to 1896 @ 72dp , Color mode 8 bit, and converted to sRGB. Then in SFW, I set Jpeg quality to 60%, I do the exact same thing for Export as Jpeg, (set Jpeg quality to 60%) .  I have upload Image and don't see a shifting quality. I am using Cinema HD Display 2560X1600.  Is the Export as Jpeg quality slider calibrated like the SFW quality slider ?

thanks for your help

Participating Frequently
June 22, 2015

Somebody actually got paid to make the decision to remove "Save For Web"?  This is the number one function I use all-day-long as a website manager.

Thanks Adobe.