Web banner image quality?

[MrM2]

Hi,

I'm creating web banner ads using Animate CC 2017. The ads are limited to 150K or less. Before importing any photo I use, I first reduce to final size in Photoshop and crop, then run it through an online lossy compression app. The photo quality after compressing looks terrible (blurry, mottled, pixelated). Any suggestions on how to get decent image quality and still keep the animation under 150K?

(FYI - The animations are only 15 seconds or less, with varying typical banner ad sizes.)

Thanks

[kglad]

what's the bitmap look like in photoshop and what's its size in ps?

[MrM2]

I think my problem is that the photos are larger than the banner size (for example the banner might be 728x90 but the photo is 728x600) so that we can pan across the photo. Since the photos are so large, I was having to compress at a really low quality. 

[kglad]

you're doing that wrong: decrease the bitmap dimensions in ps.

[MrM2]

Sorry, what do you mean I'm doing it wrong? If I want the ad to pan from the top of the photo to the bottom, then I need the photo at that size.

[kglad · Accepted solution]

if you need a bitmap with that many pixels you have no choice but to decrease quality and/or use compression.  depending on your particular bitmap you may able to use a more effective compression technique without much loss in quality.

[MrM2]

I think you're right, I just need to experiment more with the compression, or quit using large photos. lol

Thanks for your input.

[kglad]

you're welcome.

[Colin Holgate]

Are you able to show us an example image? Might give us ideas on better ways to compress the image.

[MrM2]

Take my word, they looked bad. lol

I think they will look better if I crop my photos smaller and experiment more with the image quality when I save as JPEGs.

Thanks.

[kglad]

sometimes you can compress with no loss of pixel info and affect dramatic file size decrease.  eg, when there's a uniform background color.