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Unansweredmvse
Participating Frequently
March 19, 2022
Answered

Why is PS lowering my image quality when I export it?

  • March 19, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 19538 views

Hello, I have been working with the updated version of PS on my tablet and I always save my files in the highest progressive .jpg resolution. So I recently began working with a .png file at 17 MB. I undoubtedly published and exported it every time in the highest resolution, like I stated in the sentence before this. And all of a sudden I'm left with a .jpg image that's 4.4 MB. So I think okay, I must be doing something wrong. And then I reimported the same 17.7 MB .png file to reexport it untouched from its original quality and state, as would be like a copy in the .png format and yet again, it's now lowered significantly IMO by 1.3 MB. If I change a few details like use a feature in the file I was previously exporting, it will go down to 7.5 MB .png. 


In all honesty, I'm kinda frustrated as I shouldn't be dealing with these types of problems on top of a non user friendly program that I have to pay for. Photoshop Mix inadvertently used to work efficiently and effectively on all quality's behalf.

Correct answer Earth Oliver

@Kukurykus hi can I call you Kuk? 

I'm not sure whether you're having trouble deciding on which idea/question in which to reply, you're helping tidy up things or you're just stumped at giving me clear professional answers. But I am shocked nevertheless at the level of support from each and every adobe community personnel that can't answer such simple questions. Thanks and don't even bother.


>I'm still new to the editing world no matter how much I believed I know.

&

>I consider myself a professional editor.

Everything you've said in this thread is incredibly confusing and often contradictory, and now you're here attacking people because they can't understand what in the heck you're talking about? 

4 replies

Participant
December 28, 2024

Personally, this is merely a long term ploy for Adobe to control an image definition standard. JPEG is a PERFECTLY good image compressio algo. It serves well to provide image size/tolerance in compression and is able to perform near lossless. Having shot 50-100MB raw files for years, there is no reason for Adobe to FRACK with JPEG at this point, or starting a few years back. That said, no more big licenses for my companies or family. 

D Fosse
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 28, 2024

@JackNva 

 

You are apparently not aware that jpeg compression damage is cumulative. Every single time you resave a jpeg it deteriorates further. That alone makes it absolutely unusable for working storage.

 

"Near lossless" as you call it might perhaps be acceptable for some users / uses - if it only happened once. But it happens every time.

 

Jpeg is also unusable because it is extremely limited in terms of file properties. Jpeg basically supports...nothing. It does not support layers of any kind, it does not support 16 bit depth, it does not support transparency or alpha channels. Hard to do any decent work without any of those.

 

In short, jpeg is a one-off end product, for final delivery over limited bandwidth only. It is not suitable for storage of original files.

Bojan Živković11378569
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 22, 2022

"In all honesty, I'm kinda frustrated as I shouldn't be dealing with these types of problems on top of a non user friendly program that I have to pay for. "

 

Photoshop is meant for professionals and heavy image editors in first place. Photoshop offers enormous power in image editing and that comes with price but we do not call it non user friendly. 

 

 

Unansweredmvse
Participating Frequently
March 23, 2022

First off, I have learned my lesson with the .png issue, and will rather refrain from projecting any negative opinions out there. I consider myself a professional editor. And I loved photoshop Mix, which is why I am irked when.. things get too difficult. I don't get why I may not manually resize my layers in the project with exact coordinates by number, to let's say, resize them to fit each other pixel to pixel, so I can edit colors contrasts and so on in an image. I'm beginning to learn PS on tablet must be and is a nice program if you have photoshop on a desktop, and you can easily work around these little things, that unfortunately I've spent countless hours trying to do on the tablet. I started another thread to ask for answers about this but so far no one has answered. So I'm bringing it here. Here's a screenshot of me in an attempt to do this thing.

Unansweredmvse
Participating Frequently
March 27, 2022

Breakdown from using PS Mix on iPhone to PS on Tablet


@Kukurykus hi can I call you Kuk? 

I'm not sure whether you're having trouble deciding on which idea/question in which to reply, you're helping tidy up things or you're just stumped at giving me clear professional answers. But I am shocked nevertheless at the level of support from each and every adobe community personnel that can't answer such simple questions. Thanks and don't even bother.

Earth Oliver
Legend
March 21, 2022

Saving a jpg is not the same as a png and you can always expect a smaller file size. What you're describing here is not a problem and is 100% to be expected.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 19, 2022

Without seeing actually what you are working with or your actual procedure, it's hard to tell what's going on, but what it really comes down to is compression and what was applied to your original (or not).

Regardless, you should NEVER be saving working files in JPG, as it's a lossy format. Every time you resave, even at Max quality, you will be losing something and you could very well have a compromised graphic in short order. You should always be saving in native PSD until the time you need to export it for other purposes.

PNG is a compressed format which is lossless, but depending on what level of compression is selected can be as small as 4MB or as large as a native file.

Unansweredmvse
Participating Frequently
March 21, 2022

Thank you for the reply. This is what I'm referring to.

D Fosse
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 21, 2022

Welcome to jpeg. Jpeg uses very aggressive data compression to reduce file size. The compression is destructive, non-reversible and cumulative. Every time you resave a jpeg, it degrades further. That's the price for the small file size.

 

PNG is compressed too, but not as aggressively, so PNG file size is usually a little higher. In addition, PNG compression is non-destructive and reversible.

 

The only reason jpeg is still widely used, is that the compression is incredibly effective. If you start with an uncompressed PSD/TIFF, jpeg can squeeze the file size down to 2-5% of original size.