How to Keep the Quality While Making Files Smaller

By Greg | Category: Business Management, Designer Tips |

When making papers, many times you end up with a huge file. One that is huge when it comes to transfering it to a customer. So the tip(s) I offer you today, are included in this quick how-to about shrinking the size of your file, while still keeping the print quality high.

Tip 1: When saving a large 300-ppi file to jpg format you should first save the file in the native format for your software. For example, it would be a PSD file for photoshop users. That way you still have an original to work with in the future. Tip 2: Then save your paper to jpg format using the most compression while keeping the quality high, so you aren’t adversely affecting the quality. For most papers 8 is the average used. But you’ll need to do some test runs to see. To do this use your save options combined with the jpg compression or optimization settings.

For photoshop users you would:

Select the “File>Save As” from the menu bar

After naming the file, change the file type to “jpg” in the dropdown list at the bottom of the dialog box, before clicking “OK”.

Once the jpg compression dialog opens, set it to ”level 8″.

Then save the file as “Optimized”, but it’s very important to NOT choose “Progressive”! (Tip 3)

This save will result in a much smaller file, but keep it at a high quality for printing. After you’ve saved it, reopen the jpg file and maximize the view size to 100%. Do a quality check to make sure 8 was an acceptable compression level. If you find it left unwanted artifacts or lowered the quality to an unacceptable state - then use the original working file and save using less compression.

Mini-Tasker: Take a look at your largest paper file. Using the original working file, save it at 2 or 3 different compression levels to test the quality. REMEMBER to use optimized, but DO NOT choose progressive!

Saving your files to a smaller size makes it easier on your customers when downloading and saving on their own machine. It also means you can pack more into your download packages, without increasing your bandwidth use. :) Everybody’s happy!

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Tags: 30-Day Business Challenge, Business Coaching Articles, Business Management, Designer Tips, digi-scrap-tutorials, digi-scrapper

2 comments
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David September 21st, 2007 6:53 pm :
Tip for Day 20: Competitive Positions.

Marketing guru Michael Porter suggests there are four basic competitive strategies, three winners and one loser.

First winner, is Cost Leadership: The race for the lowest cost, like Walmart, to grab a large market share. Hard to achieve in digital scrapping with the overwhelming supply of freebies.

Second winner, is Differentiation: the production of an innovative and unique product line so that most customers would chose your brand if the price is reasonable, such as Caterpiller. The barriers to entry in digital scrapping are so low, this too is difficult to maintain and expensive to protect.

Third Winner, is Focus: serve a few needs well rather than chasing everything. Become an expert at something and stick to it. There are lots of types of digital scrapbooking asset and very few market leaders.

The loser, is Middle-Of-The-Road: trying to be everything to all people. Companies that position here tend to fail quickly.

Any of the three winning strategies make sense in the digital scrapping market. With the unique character of this industry, maybe strategy three gives the most promise.

Please re-think your strategy if you plump for the fourth one. Don’t aim to be one of the flock - aim to be the best, and win!
PChip September 25th, 2007 7:44 am :
Excellent tips here guys. Thanks for sharing them!

David, I’m thinking you are right on the mark with the 3rd strategy there being the winner of the bunch. Niche and sub-niche fields seem to out-perform the others for me too.