How to smooth and sharpen pixelated jpeg images?

[sksomuah]

I have a logo being produced for the web. The logo was done in illustrator. Every time i look at the jpg file its very pixelated and speckled. Is there anyway to reduce the appearance of that?

[Mike_Gondek]

Usually i save web logos as gif to get a sharp crisp edge. To get a good answer you will need to post a sample. For all we know someone may have designed a web logo with a full color photograph on the inside. A screenshot of your jpeg settings would be suggested also.

[Guest]

A jpeg from Illustrator?

Illustrator files are usually vector based art and would not naturally end up as a jpeg.

What you are seeing is a characteristic of jpeg files. They are what is called "lossy."

Everytime one compresses a file into jpeg more information is tossed away.

I do not know of a good way to recover this.

If your art is a logo, it is probably linework as opposed to a photo. If it is linework, and

if you still have the original Illustrator file; may I suggest saving it as a pdf.

The file (if it is not a photograph) will be very clean and very small in file size.

Saving linework this way also lets you change the actual size without any degradation.

K-pxl

[Guest]

An image may appear speckled if you are working in indexed color (ie: GIF or PNG8). Make sure you are first working in RGB color mode before loading images. You can reduce to indexed color as a final step during the 'Save for Web' function.

If the logo was created in Illustrator and saved as AI/EPS/PDF, just load it into Photoshop as a smart object. A SO will allow you to resize/resample from the source vector artwork. You would likely have problems if the illustrator artwork was loaded not as a SO, but as a rasterized layer. If you repeatedly resize a rasterized logo, you will certainly see pixelly mush.

[Guest]

The "rasterized mush" happens pretty quickly. It usually manifests itself as square splotches that appear around, but not on any asdjacent edges within the picture. Nice wording (rasterized mush). One would hope that the art IS vector and that the issues of raster disaster can be eluded. The fact that the doc is from Illustrator is an indication that it is probably a vector. So i'm thinkin' that it can be swfed or flashed, or otherwise kept simple, thus bypassing the JPEG, GIF, or PiNG thing (and the resulting speckling)

I be spinning into space as usual, nevertheless, the SWF export from Illustrator of the average AI/EPS/PDF file sure looks clean on the browsers.

K-Pxl

[Grant H]

without seeing the logo its dificult to say whats the best to convert it from AI to, but I would import the vector to PS then resize it to correct size at 96 ppi then save for web and devices and choose PNG 24...

G

[Guest]

Grant H wrote:

...then resize it to correct size at 96 ppi then save for web...

There is no correct size of any PPI when saving for web. The web does not use PPI.

[Grant H]

without getting into a tech debate... saving that sort of thing that way almost ALWAYS looks sharper etc...

G

[Guest]

There is no debate any more than someone might argue that the moon is made of cheese. It is simple nonsense.

Save for Web removes PPI data so it is completely silly to bother with specifying it prior to using SFW.

[Guest]

Oh nooooo!

No stepping into the great "There is no such thing as resolution" debate!

   Aaaack!

This reply is adressing the distinction between RASTER and VECTOR files only.

If you have a VECTOR file, you do not have resolution because resolution is a function of RASTER files.

Raster files are ALWAYS rectangular and they are worked in Photoshop which does have resolution settings.

Vector files are lines and drawings that are described by code and are usually worked in Illustrator or some program that writes linework files. They can be any shape and can be any size without the filesize getting larger because they do not depend on resolution to render themselves.

The fact that the logo was originally an Illustrator file would indicate that it is a VECTOR GRAPHIC and as such it would be a mistake to bring it into Photoshop at all. (unless, as noted above, someone placed a RASTER file like psd, jpg, gif, or png into Illustrator and then exported a new jpeg? Why would anyone?)Times have changed, and apparently our original post has moved on.

I am irresolute and am melting.

420x420 and out.

K-Pxl

Message was edited by: K-Pxl

[Grant H]

yes: I'm sure we all know about Vector and Raster.... but he wants it for the web, not print!

G