Trying to Save PSD as JPEG - Trying to Fix Extreme Quality Loss

[niagara94]

Hi - I am using PE 2020.  I created a project using pictures and JPEG's and PNG's as well as text.  Now I am trying to save the result as a JPEG.  However, when I select Save As and select the highest quality it saves my file as a mere 233.9 kb.  The original PSD file is 21.4 mb in size.  How do I make the JPEG output a higher size?  At the 233.9 kb size the quality is severely diminished.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

[ShelLuser]

Size doesn't mean much when it comes to quality. The JPEG format (link to WikiPedia page) applies compression so it's logical that a jpeg image will end up as a lot smaller than its original. A size comparison between PSD and JPEG isn't really a fair one because of the different formats; a psd file will also include more "meta data"; information about the image which is only usable for Photoshop.

If you want to focus on quality you should be focusing on resolution and color depth, not necessarily the filesize. My suggestion though would be to use a different image format. Try GIF or maybe PNG if you feel daring.

[niagara94]

Hi - Thank you for your reply.  I tried using the PNG format and the quality wasn't better.  What I am doing is designing my own Christmas card and trying to upload it to Walmart (the format has to be either JPEG or PNG).  When I do that what shows on the Walmart site is so fuzzy so I'm trying to figure out how to remedy that.  I saved in both formats and both look fine when opened on my computer but fuzzy when uploaded.  Any ideas?  Thanks.

[niagara94]

Hi - I figured it out.  I needed to set the resolution of the project right from the start when I first created a new project.  Now it's just right.

[ShelLuser]

Hi!

Thanks for the feedback, that might also help other random readers. And you're right: it's the resolution which you need to take care off.

To elaborate a little bit more on this..  I verified a few things for myself and I can see where your confusion came from: by default Photoshop Elements ("PSE") displays the file size in the bottom, but you can change this. Another thing to look out for is that by default images are displayed so that it fills up your entire screen. So small images will get enlarged and large images are shown smaller than they are.

A good way to check for this is to either check the top of the screen (the tabs) and look at the percentage being shown. If its less than 100% then you're dealing with a zoomed out image. If it's larger than 100% you're looking at an enlarged picture:

Here is an example...  if you look at the first tab (I marked the area) you'll notice 47% which means that this is a zoomed out image. The second tab shows 150%: this is a zoomed in image. If you right click on an image you can quickly change the way it's displayed: either it's fully filling the screen (as shown in my screenshot), or you let it show the actual pixels (this is also how you'll know how large your image really is) and finally you can use the printed size. I can't comment on that last option because I hardly use it.

But there's more... Look at the bottom area which I marked as well: if you click the "arrow button" you can select what it needs to display. By default it shows you the file size but you can change this to many other things, such as the image size, the currently selected layer, the efficicency and so on. 

And there's even more than that: you'll notice that the bottom area has 2 sections: it shows a percentage and then the info you want to display. Try clicking the second area and keep the mouse button pressed. You'll now get to see a pop-up which shows you the dimension of the current image:

See what I mean?  This can also be seriously handy to make sure your image size is what you need it to be.

Hope this could still help you out a bit!

[niagara94]

Hi - Thank you for the further information!