Can I use .png images rather than jpegs?

[TheDigitalMan]

While evaluating the shopsite software I initally used .pdf files. These looked great on my mac but when I went to a friends house and wanted to show them my evaluation store their computer would not display the .PDFs. It showed just a box with the filename in it. So I switched to JPEGs. But they looked pretty rough looking on the screen. Grainy or pixelated if you will. So I switched to PNGs. These looked REALLY GREAT on the screen. Very smooth and sharp looking. I went to a PC and they still display fine. Is there a reason why I shouldn't use them? I noticed in the quick start guide that they state all images should be JPEG or GIF. Was this guide written before PNGs became popular? JPEGs really suck in image quality IMHO. I haven't actually looked at or tried GIFs.

Thanks in advance for any sage advice anyone might have.

Randy

[Jeff]

You switched from PDFs to JPGs? Perhaps you didn't set the picture height and width correctly which would distort the image. We use JPGs and they work fine. Gifs are inappropriate for complex graphics such as photos.

As for the PDF format, it's designed for printing documents where layout is critical. Tax forms, for example. Or, in a commerce setting, product spec sheets to be used as printed handouts.

Otherwise many people hate PDFs and newbies will find them useless.
See usability expert Jakob Nielsen's 2003 hatchet job on PDFs
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030714.html

[loren_d_c]

You can use any type of image you want. However, I wouldn't stray far from jpg and gif if I were you, some browsers, especially older ones, may not support all other formats. Most web images are jpgs or gifs. If you had a bad experience with jpgs converted from some other format, it was probably the conversion that screwed them up, not the jpg format itself. jpgs can look great.

-Loren

[TheDigitalMan]

Thank you both for your time and replies. Being a graphic artist I think PDFs are great but I do understand and take your point about newbies maybe not understanding them as well. The reason I went with that format in the beginning was because the artwork was in Illustrator and it was an easy progression to save it as a PDF. Also, once I had done that and put it into my evaluation shopsite website I noticed that I could right click on them and they downloaded as PDFs onto my desktop. They could then be opened and printed easily and emailed to friends as attachments etc. Each PDF represented 1 product item and did contain certain specs and pricing. I liked the idea of having them as little individual product PDFs for each product. However, much to my surprise they did not display as a graphic on PCs.

Concerning the conversion from PDF to JPEG. I had no problem with distortion. I just didnt like the way the background color transitioned into the lighter type color in the JPEG. It had a harsh halo around the letters and what not. The same file, same resolution (72 DPI), looked much sharper and better when saved as a PNG. I realize JPEGs have many settings for saving them and perhaps I need to learn more about them. I have generally worked with high resolution TIFF and EPS files when handling high quality graphics for printing. The PC I viewed the PNG files on was not a very new one. I am inclined to believe that most browsers will display PNGs. I am also inclined to believe that if a users computer will not display a PNG file than they are probably not going to be able to afford my product anyway.

Thanks again for your comments. I will probably choose to live dangerously and use the PNGs until disaster strikes. At which point I can still always convert them to JPEGs.

Randy

[Jeff]

Hadn't thought about PNGs in a few years. Here's a sliver of what Wikipedia says about them.

"JPEG will produce a smaller file than PNG for photographic (and photo-like) images since it uses a lossy encoding method specifically designed for photographic image data. Using PNG instead of a high-quality JPEG for such images would result in a large increase in filesize (often 5-10 times) with negligible gain in quality."

Seems compelling that JPEGs are better for most web photographic applications where download time is important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNG

[TheDigitalMan]

Hmmm, I may have to take a harder look at this. I suppose file size is important! Maybe I am not creating the JPEGS properly.

[TheDigitalMan]

O.K. I think perhaps I have found the correct settings to produce the desired results I want with JPEGs. And the file size is considerably smaller. I am going with quality level 7 with Anti-Aliasing on. I was wondering what the "Baseline Standard", Baseline Optimized", and "Progressive" settings were for? Do I want to use anything other than the default "Baseline Standard"?

Thanks for your input. It has been appreciated.

Randy

[Jeff]

I presume you're getting "baseline optimized" and "progressive" from your photo editing software. I'm pretty sure SS doesn't mention those terms.

Here is a nice summary of web graphic formats that includes those terms.
http://www.buildwebsite4u.com/building/ ... mats.shtml

[forgot to actually include the link yesterday LOL]

[TheDigitalMan]

Thanks for the link. The information was most helpful.

Randy

[mactheweb]

As people have already mentioned jpegs are superior for most product photos. However, if you are using illustrations that don't contain gradients, pngs or gifs, will create smaller, sharper images.

In Photoshop it is possible to set different compression qualities for individual layers. Import your Illustrator files into Photoshop. In the save for Web dialog box, with JPEG selected for your output, look at the Quality drop-down menu. To the right of that is a little box with a circle in it. Click on that and you get the option of setting different compression levels for each layer.

Save the text layer with 80% (both minimum and maximum) and other layers with 40-50% or so, and your text should be sharp in a reasonable sized file.

As Illustrator has a similar Save for Web function, it may offer the same options. I don't have a current copy.