Are editing features severely limited when working with JPGs?

[Muse]

So far, I'm having trouble just cropping and saving my JPGs. The ~standard JPG I get with my Samsung V3 Digimax is ~1.5 MB. When I crop it in the Photosuite III software that came with the camera and save my changes or as a new file it comes out more like 300 kb. I don't see an option to save as a > 1 MB file. Is that because I'm dealing with JPGs? Photosuite help says the program has compression options when saving graphics files but not for compressed formats. Is this standard for all graphics editing programs?

 

[rivan]

JPG is just a file format - there's nothing limiting about it.

It's a lossy-compression format, and the level of lossiness is controllable. From your camera, the files are likely BARELY compressed (for superior quality). There are probably options in your software as you're saving that are setting the compression level higher, resulting in greater image degradation, but also greatly reduced file size. There's also a possibility that (especially if it's one of those wizard-y programs with a 'save for email' button) the program is reducing the pixel size of your file as it saves.

This part:

help says the program has compression options when saving graphics files but not for compressed formats.

makes no sense. Are you sure you're reading it right?

I highly recommend this reading for you. Follow all the way through to the 5-part series linked on page 2.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: rivan


This part:

help says the program has compression options when saving graphics files but not for compressed formats.

makes no sense. Are you sure you're reading it right?

Thanks.

Concerning your question quoted:

Under Advanced Settings for Saving your work in MGI PhotoSuite III Help it says this under Compression:

"Choose whether or not to compress the file. Note that compression always occurs at the expense of picture quality. This option is unavailable to those file formats that are compressed to begin with."

That's what I'm reading. Whether I'm interpreting it right may be another story.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Muse
Thanks.

Concerning your question quoted:

Under Advanced Settings for Saving your work in MGI PhotoSuite III Help it says this under Compression:

Choose whether or not to compress the file. Note that compression always occurs at the expense of picture quality. This option is unavailable to those file formats that are compressed to begin with.

Well, I can tell you that this is flat out wrong. There are lossless compression schemes that are compatible with certain image formats.

Aside from being wrong, that's worded pretty ambiguously, and I can see why it's confusing. I've never used that application, but what you SHOULD be seeing when saving is the option to first choose what format (jpg, tif, eps, whatever) to use, then getting options specific to that format.

I looked for some online information of PhotoSuite III and it looks like it's from 2000 or so. If you're not totally in love with it, I might suggest the free Irfanview, recommended here. You might instantly be having a better experience with it over PhotoSuite.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: rivan

Originally posted by: Muse
Thanks.

Concerning your question quoted:

Under Advanced Settings for Saving your work in MGI PhotoSuite III Help it says this under Compression:

Choose whether or not to compress the file. Note that compression always occurs at the expense of picture quality. This option is unavailable to those file formats that are compressed to begin with.

Well, I can tell you that this is flat out wrong. There are lossless compression schemes that are compatible with certain image formats.

Aside from being wrong, that's worded pretty ambiguously, and I can see why it's confusing. I've never used that application, but what you SHOULD be seeing when saving is the option to first choose what format (jpg, tif, eps, whatever) to use, then getting options specific to that format.

I looked for some online information of PhotoSuite III and it looks like it's from 2000 or so. If you're not totally in love with it, I might suggest the free Irfanview, recommended here. You might instantly be having a better experience with it over PhotoSuite.

Searching that thread I'm seeing posts saying that FASTSTONE IMAGE VIEWER is the better freeware program. I don't know if it has the same support for editing?

 

[Deadtrees]

Fast Stone Image Viewer is a great viewer program. Its editing ability is quite limited but I don't know how it is compared to Photosuite III.

Why don't you just use Photoshop or LightRoom?

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Deadtrees
Fast Stone Image Viewer is a great viewer program. Its editing ability is quite limited but I don't know how it is compared to Photosuite III.

Why don't you just use Photoshop or LightRoom?

Are you serious?

The guy's using a 7-year old app to crop snapshots. Not only would both of those tools be complete overkill, I'd really suspect they're both totally out of the pricerange.

OP, I didn't read past the top post in the thread, but given they're both free, you've got nothing to lose by trying one or both.

Good luck!