P: Bring back JPEG quality percentage to Export As dialog

[Dan Rodney]

I updated to Photoshop version 22.5.0 and just noticed that File > Export > Export As has a majorly dumbed down JPEG quality menu. Photoshop is for professionals. Having accurate control over quality is import for optimizing to a small file size. Giving a few choices (and not even telling us what quality they are) is not acceptable for a pro app. I know for now I can go into prefs and use the legacy version, but please bring back the quality percentage!

I also posted this on the Photoshop Feedback website which I think is a more appropriate place to discuss this, but wanted to see what other people think. It's probably best to comment there so Adobe knows. Photoshop Feedback: Bring back JPEG quality percentage to Export As dialog 

{Moderator edited title - PS-71391}

[silver darling]

Gee thanks Adobe, just screwed my workflow. I'm now spending more time working round adobe's restrictions than I am producing.

If adobe wasn't in a monopoly position as industry standard I would ditch it.

[silver darling]

And the arrogance.

"We're not going to tell you what's changed, you'll just have to find out yourselves and scrape round a "community forum"  for answers because we provide no real support for our overpriced product."

We can only pray someone with real experience answers our pleas before some amateur with zero knowledge gives yet another bum steer with no thought except to get credits on their CV. It is woeful.

[silver darling]

And now the choice is go back to 2010 legacy or ... nothing.

[rimcorp]

EXACTLY!! In "our business" time is money and when adobe makes a giant leap into wasting time to be less effective, it underlines the lack of real workd graphic production experience their "programm" actually have ...

[picturebilly]

Bring the slider back!! I cannot believe this was removed. This feature was extremely improtant to me when resizing images, and balancing quality with file size for responsive web use.

[Christopher Goossens]

Hello Jeffrey,
Thanks for your answer. But since yesterday I have to work with a Macbook Pro (M1). Do you know if the "Use legacy Export as..." will be available anytime soon. Because of course I miss the percentage options, but also the new "Export as..." is really really slow to load and it's buggy for me. I am used to use this feature everyday...
Thanks again for your help.
Christopher

[J453]

@Christopher Goossens Use legacy won't ever work on M1 (nor will old CEP panels) - that technology isn't being ported forward. I know the export as team are working on a bunch of improvements and new functionality for export as.

[erock8]

A change like that tells me one thing, and one thing only. Your project managers and software designers have NO CLUE how marketers actually behave in today's business climate, when we actual professionals have to get our output files down to a specific file size. This change was ignorant and arrogant. Change it back NOW. 

[rimcorp]

Jeffery .. certainly hope they are!!! This "export as" is clunky, slow and redundant step into the dim past ... not what I expected in an "upgrade"....,

[STBaudler]

+1 for return to the % slider.  I work on enterprise level projects that often they require extremely strict file sizes for web ads etc. Not having the ability to balance quality and file size will make it impossable to meet client expectations.
This needs a reversion asap. I don't know who asked for this change, but I have some very high end clients that will not have there standards met because of it.

I've been using adobe products for 25+ years, it wasn't broken, dont try to fix it.

[bananabananab]

Wow... What..?! Whose idea was this, this is just so much worse than the percentage slider in every way. Why would you remove functionality and precision of 0-100 in favour of vague 1-7 scale? Absolutely ridicilious! Revert, revert, revert!

[roughly34]

plus having to  reset the setting on each export is a dissaster, i've already shipping down quality images due to this bug. 

[atelierdavidsanchez]

Dear Dan, 

you saved me! thank you 😄 

[FoxCadet]

It's like we're being punished for weilding the newest, most powerful technology built for professional creatives, with a mind numbing downgrade and we don't have the option to do something that's already backward compatible.

[lauraT]

In addition to not being available on ARM M1 systems, the legacy "Export As" option also messes with file names by replacing spaces with dashes. So if you want to maintain consistent file naming conventions that include spaces, you'll have to manually correct all those ugly file names, which can be quite a chore, even if you use a bulk file renamer. (Category---Subcategory---Product-Name---Color---Size.jpg)

[anna needs help]

I too would like greater clarification on this. My worksflow involves saving images at 30% at twice their size (so they look good on retina screens). I came up with this after lots of testing. Which category does 30% fall into? It would be great if there was a chart with both methods so we could compare.

[jonathan8_8]

@anna needs help  your best bet is to enable the legacy "export as" in the preferences to bring back the percentage (see the answer marked above)

[barrya]

This has been an absolute disaster for my workflow to meet narrow spec requirements for banners -- in the Photoshop 'Export As' which is already an absolute disaster for it's quality, user interface. 

At least put this back. It's unbelievable that this happened.

[clevermill.com]

See my screen recording here.

Often times I need to get the k weight of an image to a near exact number.  With the "Excellent, Very good, Good settings", I can't get to precision of weight I desire.   (Also, those options make me feel like the Adobe team sees most PS users as novices, when many of us are seasoned gurus.).     It'd be great if you can bring back the precision I'm accustomed to in previous Photoshop versions.   

[clevermill.com]

I completely agree.  I feel like the jpg quality menu is definitely "dumbed down".  PS is for pro's.  I need the precision to get just the right amount of k-weight.

[jonerikj]

Any update on this?

[bananabananab]

This is absolutely ridicilious..!! I cannot express the amount of disbelief and disgust I am in right now. The difference between each step is hundreds of kilobytes, and a vast chasm of pixels, there is no middle ground! One of the most basic and important functions of the software has been totally ravaged for no good reason (I export images for use on the web so size and quality matter).
And also, if Adobe really think this is an improvement on the fine grained control of exporting an image, which it is objectively not, why can I not roll back to legacy export on my macbook pro just because it's an M1 device..?? 
REINSTATE PROPER IMAGE EXPORT!!! SUCH A CRUCIAL FEATURE TO MESS UP FOR NO REASON. IT HAS BEEN MORE THAN 6 MONTHS SINCE YOU SAID YOU WOULD LOOK INTO ADDING BACK THE PROPER FUNCTIONALITY. 

You cannot charge such extortionate fees for your software and suddenly totally wreck it.

Right now Pixelmator does a better job. 

And since when is 'great' better than 'EXCELLENT'?? What??? 🤦‍:female_sign:

GRR!!!!!

[jonerikj]

Open using Rosetta will allow you to get this feature. At least it works on my Macbook Pro 2021 M1 Max.

In Finder right click Applications > Photoshop.app > Get Info > Open using Rosetta

In Photoshop > Preferences > Export > Use legacy "Export As"

[barrya]

I've started using the "Generate" (under File > Generate Image Assets) for all exports, as it allows me to keep an continual exported version of web assets generated from artboards or layer comps in @1x and @2X sizes -- and I can dial in the jpeg compression from 1-100%. It's much easier than going through the "Export As" process (but of course a little harder to set up initially).

[scabbot610]

As an OG PS user (30 years, anyone else?), I’ve always tended to use older methods -- and even on my brand spankin’ new M1 I didn’t notice this until recently because I’ve been using Command-Shift-Option-S “Save for Web,” which has always had both named levels (Low/Medium/High/Very High/Maximum) AND a percentage slider. The Labels simply jump the slider to a preset (10/30/60/80/100), but the user can also enter their own percentage. And it persists from one save to the next.

But like some others, I did originally come here to complain that everyone who approved “Great” as better quality than “Excellent” had their head firmly inserted in... a hole of some kind.  😛