When using the export as dialog the 8-bit (smaller file) is no longer functioning first screen shot is the Export as dialog in PS 23.1.1 Second is same file and same dialog in 23.2.0
OK, got it, my bad. I didn't look closely enough. Still, indexed color has its own limitations in the 256 color palette. Don't mistake "8 bit" PNGs for 8 bits per channel, it actually means 8 bits total.
If you have hard size requirements but still need a certain resolution, it seems jpeg is the way to go (as Per suggests).
chrisn50837302, if you read through this thread, you'll find the solution. Essentially you need to change your preferences to legacy settings for now. But it's more complicated if you're using an M1 Mac. The answers are all here in the thread.
Ok, as I understand previous disscussions, many commentators also believe that the previous behavior of the option was more desirable and did not raise questions.
In my case I also get best results (smaller file with shadows) in old (buggy) version.
As I see option "Legacy Export As" can return old behavior, but I use Photoshop in native M1 mode and want to see this option here.
Alternative suggestion - make both options available in the export dialog.
Landy2005, I wholeheartedly agree they need to get this "Legacy" option working in the M1-native version. I only use a fraction of Photoshop's capabilities, but I'm sure there's probably a host of other areas the M1-native version needs updating.
@BrettN So it seems you're the one responsible for introducing this bug? PNG-8 files have always supported alpha transparency. You seem to think the GIF spec and PNG-8 spec are technically the same, but they are not.
The support for alpha transparency in PNG-8 files is used everywhere on the internet. It's absolutely essential for small, high fidelity images. (I bet we'd find examples on Adobe.com.) I have to say that it's concerning that someone in charge of implementing the industry standard software doesn't understand this! 😞
Maddening to read this thread. It's bogged down in semantics. Put simply: The PNG format does support alpha transparencies with any bit depth.
You might argue this makes files not "true" 1-bit, 2-bit, 4-bit, 8-bit, etc. but that is entirely semantics. The end user does not care what you label these files, they simply want indexed color with alpha transparency.
The bottom line is that the PNG file format allows for alpha transparencies and Photoshop has long supported this feature!
The PNG spec forbids the use of a full alpha channel with palette-based images, but it does allow ``cheap alpha'' via the transparency chunk, tRNS.
By comparison, GIF supports only binary transparency, wherein a single palette color is marked as completely transparent, while all others are fully opaque.
I hope you can appreciate the frustration of those of us who pay an expensive subscription only for our software to suddenly stop functioning correctly. We have deadlines and frustrated users to deal with ourselves.
The simple semantically perfect solution is to add a checkbox stating "Alpha transparency" (and please leave it checked by default!).
@SecretSecret I am on the development team that works on Export As within Photoshop, but I am not the decision maker, I'm just reporting on the information I have regarding the matter. In the larger context, while the PNG spec supports Alpha in Index, Photoshop does not. You cannot create such files through other means such as Save As PNG or the older Save for Web. Further, if you open such a file in Photoshop, it is not able to maintain this structure and simply converts it to an RGB file.
This capability appearing in Export As was accidental added when developing the tool using newer APIs. We did not purposely add this as a feature. When we discovered that files you create with specific settings were not reopening in Photoshop with those same settings (Index files opening as RGB files), we corrected the behavior to what we indended, which is to match what Save for Web does.
Export As is under current developement and we are planning on adding new features to it, such as additional transparency controls. But full support for Alpha Indexed PNGs in Photoshop is a larger consideration than just Export As and involves the larger development organization. It would likely be helpful to make sure a secondary post exists requesting the ability to open, edit, and save such files from Photoshop. This way upvoting can happen there as well to make sure more of the org is aware everyone's interest in this feature so we can have a comprehensive feature set around this particular file spec.
I've created an idea thread about this as recommended by @BrettN, though I focused more around re-adding the old version of the function as a new non-legacy option rather than adding the transparency capabilities to actual Index PNGs, since that is all I need. I did mention that though, and said that I believe both should be available, but that they should go ahead and readd the existing function to export settings too.
@BrettN This feature has been in Photoshop for years. I have been a web developer for 20+ years. Believe it or not, it was added when Export was upgraded from the old interface (that can still be seen in "Save for Web (Legacy)"). Before then people complained that Adobe Fireworks supported PNG-8 transparency (remember that?), and they wanted it in Photoshop, too. Eventually, mercifully, we got it.
Think I might be wrong? Here's a question 2011 discussing this, and an answer from 2015, when this feature was finally added to PhotoShop:
This wasn't a recent "mistake" that was accidentally turned on, it's been in place for years -- since at least 2015. The support for indexed alpha transparency is the sole reason that PNGs overtook GIFs in the web world, because otherwise their specs are the same.
This change is seriously affecting web developers across the world, especially those who work in HTML5 adverts where every byte counts.
What some users believe to be 8 bit png alpha Semi transparency in the old Export As
was in reality just png-32 as explained by BrettN. It was a mistake in the coding.
I did some testing, and this does not seem to be true, actually.
Here a fully transparent 24bit + 8bit alpha version:
When I save with these settings in PS 2022:
The result is a 32bits per pixel version:
When the same file is exported with "Smaller File (8-bit)":
The result is an 8bit version with full transparency:
If the developers' assertion were true that the earlier Photoshop releases were merely exporting 32bit (24bit + 8bit alpha) PNG files, it would show up like this (done in Color Quantizer with forced RGB):
Which, as far as I can tell, entirely disproves that PS2022 exports a 32bit version instead of a 8bit version with full transparency.
The ONLY justification why it was decided to artificially limit the new PNG export is for one reason:
In the larger context, while the PNG spec supports Alpha in Index, Photoshop does not.
[...]
if you open such a file in Photoshop, it is not able to maintain this structure and simply converts it to an RGB file.
[...]
But full support for Alpha Indexed PNGs in Photoshop is a larger consideration than just Export As and involves the larger development organization.
[..]
This capability appearing in Export As was accidental added when developing the tool using newer APIs. We did not purposely add this as a feature. When we discovered that files you create with specific settings were not reopening in Photoshop with those same settings (Index files opening as RGB files), we corrected the behavior to what we indended, which is to match what Save for Web does.
Simply stated, because Photoshop opens these 8bit fully transparent PNG files as RGB files instead of the 'proper' indexed image mode they thought it best to avoid confusing users (side note: no rational thinking user ever flagged this as an issue - quite the opposite! Everyone loved the new modernized PNG export!) and to degrade the export in order to ensure that indexed files generated in Photoshop are always opened in indexed image mode.
I will leave it to you, the reader, to decide whether you agree with the rationale behind this and making the lives of every web developer/frontend designer/game developer just that bit harder and more frustrating. 🙂
@rayek.elfin Thank you for taking the time to write up that fantastic summary of the present state of this discussion. It's comprehensive and fair-minded.
While I sympathize with Adobe's principle that an app should be able to open any given file that it can output, there are plenty of formats that are suitable for final delivery and deployment, that aren't suitable for reopening and editing. And I can't say that an indexed color file of any type is particularly useful for editing in most cases without first converting to RGB anyway.
It's also worth noting a major exception to this principle that springs to mind: the PDF. A PDF exported from InDesign can't be reopened by InDesign, and users (tend to) understand this limitation and adapt their workflows accordingly. Indeed, in that case the limitation is desirable because it encourages best practices.
This capability would have first appeared in Photoshop when Export As was added to Photoshop, which was indeed years ago. Our intention was for "Smaller File" to do the exact same thing as "PNG-8" (with "Transparency" on) in Save for Web. With Export As, we weren't making changes to address feature requests for more Fireworks-like operations, we were building a UI for Generator, which offers fewer controls and is a bit of a black box in terms of file handling. We didn't know PNG-8s were coming out different since we weren't looking for it. If it takes a 3rd-party tool to verify a characteristic, we didn't put it there deliberately and it is not supported. We also didn't know this setting had been picked up by a particular community of users as a necessary workflow. The first users who found this would have had to do so accidentally. But once they knew of it, the information spread from user to user, such as through the forum posts.
I agree that we should be adding more options to support features like this in Export As. However, our first priority is to make sure outcomes match what we planned: even if unexpected behavior is beneficial, it is ultimately undesirable.
Firstly, thanks to @BrettN for engaging with this conversation. It's far better than being ignored by Adobe. I'm sure we all can agree we really appreciate you responding.
Let me make another argument using terms that a developer like yourself should understand.
I'm sure you're familiar with SOLID Principles, and in particular the "Open–closed principle", which states that "software entities should be open for extension, but closed for modification". Think of your users' workflows as being APIs interfacing with PhotoShop.
Adobe has modified an entity instead of extending it. It doesn't matter if this was a "mistake" -- SOLID does not have exceptions for mistakes. That's the whole point.
The bottom line is that this feature falls within the official PNG specification (as has been pointed out several times already), is essential for millions of web developers and game designers, and has been part of our workflows for the best part of a decade.
Whether it was a mistake or not, is irrelevant, our workflows have been disrupted.
@SecretSecret I do not know if one can put it more precise than you have done.
I also Do not get the point of those who say that the removal of the function is normal and that we are stupid or incompitent for not enjoying it.
It took me a while to figure out what happened, how to look for it and how to fix it. So I spend about 30-40 minutes looking for a solution. The problem is that I am not getting paid by Adobe to be a Beta user.
I too, spent 30 mins looking for a solution to this sudden issue of Photoshop messing up the PNG8 exports. Another vote to fix this and restore back to how it was. Re-opening these exported PNG8's back into Photoshop should never have been a consideration and now something very critical to web developers everywhere is now broken. Life was so much easier/better with Fireworks, which still produced better exports (without the expensive monthly subscription).
I am so sick and tired of this adobe I cannot even describe (profanity removed by moderator).
I updated creative cloud and other apps (Indesign stopper working properly) and the settings in the creative cloud were changed to update everything automatically.
Then I see that photoshop was updated again to the latest version with cut function for export (discussed in this thread).
What happens when you update the creative cloud - it automatically updates the settings you turned off after the last and it then updates photoshop to the verion you are not ok with and then you cannot go back to the last version that just worked for you?
I tell you. They have absolutely no intention of fixing it for you, they will let you steam off in this dumpster of a forum and nothing will be back to when it worked. More so the version that was ok for you will no longer be there.
This makes me question whether I need to update anything from Adobe at all. The reality is that I will stay away from the update for as long as possible and when I cannot do it anymore I will cancel the contract and switch to afinity.
I am so unbelievably mad, I cannot describe. adobe does things which I explicitly TURN OFF in the previous version.
It's just more proof, if any more was needed, to how out of touch Adobe is with the needs and concerns of its customers. Placing internal developer desires over the productivity of their users. The extra work added to our daily workflow due to this incomphrensible and stubborn change is incredible. Every time I face it, I come back to this thread to see if @BrettN or anyone else from Adobe has addressed it again.
Adobe have become the outdated behemoth; slow and out of touch, just like Quark before them. ("Who?" Adobe killed Quark by creating better software for professional customers.)
When Export As introduced a semi-transparent PNG-8 (like Fireworks was able to export), I was extermely happy! Finally Photoshop had caught up. It pains me to see Export As going backwards in features (removing transparent PNG-8 export, dumbing down JPEG export to only a few quality settings so we have less control over file size) and it still doesn't support animated GIF after all these years!
Removing partial transparency from the PNG 8 is a huge step back in features I need, and it seems other people here agree. I was shocked to read that transparent PNG-8 was considerd a bug and "fixed" when I have zero need for non-partial transparent PNG-8. If others need that, it's OK to include it too, but not at the expense of removing the other extremely useful one that I and others rely on. PNG-8 with partial transparency produces considerably smaller files than PNG-24. I don't care what you call it, but please bring back partial transparency PNG-8 that some of us use and need.
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Adobe Certified Expert & Instructor at Noble Desktop | Web Developer, Designer, InDesign Scriptor
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