Optimize Images - Best Workflow?

[dowbright]

What is the smartest way to ensure that the load time for a project is the best it can be as far as images are concerned? I've only now, late into a project, realized that I didn't think about it at all. I used what I had and shrank it down to the size needed, without doing it officially in Mac Preview, or anywhere else. How should I have done it?

For better results In the future for me, how to you handle it? Can Adobe do any optimizing for me?

Thanks,

The Eternal Newbie

[RodWard]

You need to preformat your images so that they are the exact size you need them to be on the Captivate stage.  For most images JPG will be your most economical format, but for some types of images where the subject is a computer interface screen capture and the UI has lots of flat colour with text, then your better format will be either GIF or PNG.

[xr42nv]

As RodWard said re-sizing to the correct size in Photoshop (or equivalent) and importing will save on size. I generally mock out images or placeholders when story boarding so I have an idea of the sizes that I need. If you hover over an object or image in captivate it will tell you what size your object is in pixels (just a quick tip), and then you can replicate in Photoshop.

If you already have a project built, but want to swap out images. I would save your new image over the existing one (so it has the same name), and then use the update setting in the library to update it (note, that you may need to press the reset to original size button if you have made your new image a different size). This way you do not break any of your design in a responsive project.

The advantage of using Jpeg is that you can compress the image to reduce file size, but as Rod has mentioned there are instances when you should use png.

One thing to note, in responsive project CP outputs all images as pngs which cancels out some of your efforts to compress Jpeg.

[dowbright]

Thank you for the tip on updating a pic. I wouldn't have known how to do it!

You are appreciated!

I am only now embarking on Illustrator, and it's a puzzle to me, as Captivate still is.

So I have no idea when I'll be ready to learn Photoshop.

Right now, I think Preview in Mac will be good enough to reduce size...but am I wrong?

Thanks for all your replies. So, so appreciated!

Paula

"She just doesn't GET it!"

[Lilybiri]

Why do you learn Illustrator if your goal is to use images in Captivate? Who gave that advice?

At this moment there is no roundtripping at all between Captivate and Illustrator. Captivate is bitmap based, Illustrator is vector based. That is a huge difference. Since many versions there is a real time saving roundtripping functionality between Captivate and Photoshop. The only way at this moment to insert a 'raw' image from Illustrator into Captivate is to embed it first as a smart object into Photoshop. You find Captivate to be a difficult application, Photoshop has even a lot more features and will take even longer to get to grips with it. Just a warning.

As for the rest, I gave up giving you advice many months ago. You know perfectly why.

[dowbright]

I've had trouble understanding placeholders. Ideally, they're what I want. But no matter how many videos I watch, I don't quite get it.

Once I open the file, I can't seem to overcome or replace the placeholder!

Yes, I'm the Original Captivate Idiot,

I've been working for two years, and still don't get most stuff. Though I get a lot more than I used to!

I think I need people to do the Captivate work for me, while I do what I'm really good at, which is teaching children who everyone else thinks are hopeless, and will NEVER read...THIS is an incredible skill, and lets me forget about my Captivate failures. I'm awesome at this.

I can plan lessons that will teach them to read. Painlessly, and differently. But I am spending all my time trying to learn a piece of software that I'll never truly understand! I just don't have the ability in my brain connections. We're all good at some things. I'm NO good at Captivate.

I teach them (accredited failures) how to read. But without me teaching them 1-on-1, I have to have a teaching platform. I chose Captivate 8.

Do you have ANY suggestions on how I can get affordable help with the Captivate lessons?

But I don't know how to find the Captivate people, and I don't know how I could possibly afford them.

Thanks either way. I'll keep trying, but WISH I could work on what I excel at, instead of spending so many hours a day trying to learn what will always be alien to me. 😕

Paula