bill_burke1 Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 <p>I'm using Lightroom 2.0; I've exported hundreds of JPEG's from my RAW files and always ended up with a JPEG file around 4 MB. My last few exports have resulted in files around 300-400kb. Not sure which setting I may have changed, but I'm thinking these smaller files won't print as well? I'm exporting keeping a width of 800 pixels and dpi at 240. Why are these files of late so much smaller?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc_rochkind Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 The quality setting greatly affects file size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denisgermain Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 <p>JPG will be affected by the content of the image - ie a textured image will not compress as well as a single color image.... compression of a JPG file can drastically change from one image to another.<br /><br />Once again this is a classic case of a very confused user: 800pixels AND 240dpi DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER.... </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spearhead Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 <p>To clarify that last response - dpi is meaningless for a digital image. The "i" in DPI refers to "inches" and there are no inches in files. Ignore the dpi setting, it's irrelevant until you print. </p> Music and Portraits Blog: Life in Portugal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richardsperry Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 A 800x800 100% jpeg will be about 400kb. You shrank the dimensions of the image from the full size(4000x3500 ish I'm guessing). The DPI makes no difference to the file size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill_burke1 Posted October 23, 2011 Author Share Posted October 23, 2011 <p>I'm keeping the quality setting at 100. For posting to the web, blogs, etc, I'm resizing down to 400-800 ppi and not concerned with those images. However, for the purposes of creating JPEG files specifically to print- should I be exporting from Lightroom and leaving the resizing unchecked (thereby creating a 4000 x 3500 ish file)? Re: DPI for those images to be printed, stay at 240 or does it matter?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill_burke1 Posted October 23, 2011 Author Share Posted October 23, 2011 <p>Correction - the other setting I'm looking at is not DPI - its "Resolution" measured at PPI and I've always had it at 240 - again, does this matter?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spearhead Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 <p>No. Resolution is x pixels by y pixels. That other number doesn't matter at all for web purposes. It can be 1 or 1,000,000 and as long as the pixel dimensions are the same, the image size is the same.</p> Music and Portraits Blog: Life in Portugal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc_rochkind Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 The quality setting of 100 is what's blowing up the size. Don't do this for the web -- a setting of about 70 is about right. See this excellent article by Jeffrey Friedl: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/jpeg-quality in which he says: "Those who blindly use the maximum setting for their exports likely waste a lot of local disk space, upload bandwidth, and remote storage space." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill_burke1 Posted October 23, 2011 Author Share Posted October 23, 2011 <p>What a great article - Thank you Marc. I've read several others since starting this thread. (In light of all the advantages digital brings I'm starting to long for my old FM2 and velvia.) After going digital in 2004, I shot hi-res JPEG's, never re-sized and printed at a local lab. Things started to get confusing after switching to 100% RAW in 2009, resizing and posting images to my website, but now even moreso uploading to Smugmug for clients to print. It seems every photo program speaks a different language when it comes to web/print resolution, let alone the fact that some of these settings are even inconsequential. With this article it seems a little clearer. For my web site portfolio JPEG's I can export at anywhere from 72 - 100 on the quality setting depending on preference for disk space on my own end for storage. For posting to smugmug, my JPEG exports will be made <strong>without</strong> checking off "re-size" and maintaining the max file size given the JPEG compression (4000x3500ish) although the "resolution field in PPI looks like it needs an entry will be left alone at 300. Thank you all.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herma Posted October 24, 2011 Share Posted October 24, 2011 <p>Bill, if this makes you feel any better: I know I have learned a great deal about many aspects of photography, but I had never really considered the "quality" slider in Lightroom, leaving it at 100% ALL the time. I was one of "those blindly waisting storage" refered to in that article. I truly don't understand how I could have overlooked this wonderful thing called compression, especially since I hardly ever print! Funny thing is, my husband is an image processing engineer and after filling up 3 harddrives and tons of google space for my images, he bothered to explain it to me.... go figure. Thankfully, storage is cheap, but the time spend uploading I'll never get back.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richardsperry Posted October 24, 2011 Share Posted October 24, 2011 Marc, I disagree. Most websites run jpegs through some form of compression upon upload. You will loose enough resolution there. Until just recently, photo.not took a 100 jpeg and resized to about 60. There was just an update a month or so ago and seems to be full size now. A 400kb size image is reasonable these days, if 100% quality. And locally? 2 Tb external hard drives are like $90 at Costco. But it's a matter of opinion both ways, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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