Image Quality in Published .SWF

I have a flowchart that was created in MS PowerPoint and saved as an image. I have tried to save this as a .JPEG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.
After I have saved the image, I do "Insert -> Image" in Captivate 4. The image is the correct size so it does not need to be cropped or downsized to fit. The image looks great after it is inserted, but when I publish the project to an .SWF, the image becomes slightly distorted, particularly the text on the flowchart (the text was added in PowerPoint, not Captivate-I know all about the transparent text issue...)
I have even tried removing the text in PowerPoint, and then adding text captions over the boxes on the image-this works a little better but the text is still blurry, even after I try the different transparent text fix methods.
Any help or suggestions are welcomed!

Hi there
Personally, when I work with content in PowerPoint, I display it in the slide show, then screen capture it using SnagIt to bring it into Captivate. I suppose another way would be to work in a similar fashion. Just play it from PowerPoint, then use Captivate to "Record" the single screen. Once you do that the image should be pristine.
Cheers... Rick
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Poor image quality when publishing to .mac

This is very frustrating.
I buy a high resolution, high quality, royalty-free image. I resize it and crop it in my image editing program and save it as a maximum size .jpg.
I preview the image in Apple preview, and also drag the image into my web browser and it looks crisp and sharp.
I put the image on my iWeb page and publish to .mac. I check my site and the image looks horrible! It looks as though it got compressed again on the lowest setting.
Something very weird is happening to some people. I've read other discussion on this but they are all unresolved.
I'm a graphic designer and I've used dreamweaver and published to other servers. I know about image quality and optimization. I'm doing the same steps and procedures I've always done to optimize images and I've never had this problem except when I publish to .mac.
There is a very weird and serious issue going on and I hope someone can resolve this or has an answer.
Why would an image look crisp and sharp when I view it in my image editing program or in Apple preview, but when publish to .mac it gets re-compressed?
This may sound silly but do you think Apple is doing this randomly and automatically to users to save server space on .mac? Maybe they think people wont notice or care?
I am very upset and frustrated and I can't think of any other reason why this is happening.
Any advice is helpful. Thanks!

James,
Thank you very much for your help.
Here is what I did. I used Apple grab and took a screen shot of my iWeb page where the low res graphic was in position.
I used this as a "template" for cropping my original image in my image editing program to the exact size I needed.
I cropped my original image to the size of my "grab" template, deleted the template layer and saved the sharp image as a maximum file size .jpg and placed it into my iWeb page, with "use original size". It fit perfectly in my layout and looked sharp and crisp.
Now, I published my site and checked the image.
You were correct! The image came out crisp and sharp, no more quality loss.
To test your theory, I went back to iWeb and placed an iWeb mask around the same image and re-published it.
Sure enough! The same image that was once sharp had terrible image loss.
So I guess you're right, adding any effects to an image creates the image loss.
Well, this is a terrible shame because I really like some of the border effects. For example, in a photo gallery, you can use an effect such as a slight page curl with drop shadow that appears only for the thumbnail image but the when you click on the image full size, there is no page curl, just the pure image.
If I create this slight page curl effect and drop shadow in my image editing program, then both my thumbnail and full size image will have this effect.
Not only that, but in order to get the thumbnail image to lay over my background color, I would have to re-create the page curl effect and place it on a border of the same background color as my page layout. When someone clicks on my thumbnail they will now get the full size image with the page curl effect and a slight border of the page color.
Also creating this effect in my image editing program will make it more time consuming when I want to change layout styles, because when I create the page curl / drop shadow in my image editing program, I have to change the background color around each image to match the new background color I'm using for my page. Doing this for 20 images every time I want to change my design is allot of work.
If this is what I have to do, then I have no choice. But at least I would like my thumbnail to have the effect but NOT my full size image.
How do I do this so only my iWeb thumbnail image has this effect without iWeb forcing it to a PNG and loosing quality?
Thanks I appreciate you help!

Poor image quality when importing SWF

I maintain a site for a photographer and as he added more
images the SWF got to be very large, so I split up the site and
used a main page to import the smaller SWF files into a target.
However, I found that all my clean crisp images become dull when
imported but still look sharp in the SWF itself. I tied to find all
the JPEG settings and push them up but still with no luck. Does
anybody have any insight to why this is happening?

Hello micsaint111111111111,
The reason they look more blurry than in the original swf is
that you are
dealing with dual compression from the original swf AND the
swf you are loading
the images into.
The easiest/best way to import your jpgs would be using
LoadMovie to load
the actual jpg files. That keeps all the jpgs separate so
your swf file will
be tiny. Plus the quality will be the same as the original
jpg.
That said- have you gone into your swfs and changed the
default image quality
on each of the images to 90 or 100? You do that in your
library by right-clicking
on the actual images and then going to Properties and
unchecking "Use document
default quality". That is one issue that a lot of people seem
to miss and
it might help if you don't want to recode your Flash with the
LoadMovie method.
Jesse H.
Adobe Community Expert
My site:
http://www.jharding.com
Free Blog Radio:
http://www.tornadostream.com
> I maintain a site for a photographer and as he added
more images the
> SWF got to be very large, so I split up the site and
used a main page
> to import the smaller SWF files into a target. However,
I found that
> all my clean crisp images become dull when imported but
still look
> sharp in the SWF itself. I tied to find all the JPEG
settings and
> push them up but still with no luck. Does anybody have
any insight to
> why this is happening?
>

Image quality degrades in published swf

I've built a Flash site for a freind who is a photographer.
There are over 100 images on the site that are imported jpegs. Most
of them look fine but two of them look very washed out when I
publish my swf even though in the Flash project file they have very
sharp contrast. These particular images are monochromatic. Is there
anyway to preserve the variation of tones in the published swf?
I've tried using them at maximum image quality, but had the
same result.
Any suggestions would be greatly apreciated.

I tried saving as a png, but I got the same result. It's like
my black becomes a dark grey and my midtones go light/
white.

SWF Export Image Quality Issue

I'm having an issue with a flip eFlyer myself and a colleague are working on in InDesign CS4 and need some input. We've created a eFlyer with page curl transitions and exported the swf file. When viewing the swf however, the page images vary in quality depending on whether the page curl is moused over or not. For example, the swf file resolution appears somewhat low without a mouseover, however when I mouseover the page curl in the corners, the resolution of the file noticeably improves (ie the image becomes clearer and more legible to read). Can't figure out why this is the case. Any thoughts?

I guess what´s happening "under the hood" is that flash player creates a bitmap copy of the page when ever user moused over, page curl effect is done with that bitmap, not with the actual page....
I think you have couple of ways to improve your document´s quality
1) prepare your images in photoshop, resize them to resolution 100ppi or even 120ppi, when you export your SWF, use Losless(do nothing) compression..
2) Or use high resolution images and export your SWF with larger size, for instance heigth of 1000px. Go to Adobe Marketplace:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/marketplace/index.cfm?event=marketplace.offering&offeringid=1 7503&marketplaceid=1
Downoad and install eDokcer, open eDocManager AIR-software and browse your SWF to it and hit Publish Locally button, eDocManager creates you a SWF with user interface and shrinks your large SWF to smaller, then resolution gets better.
You may use eDocManager for 3 days without license key... but that should be enough for making your flyer...
I´m not sure if either of those tricks really solves your problem, but I think that way you get better quality anyway...

!! Exporting SWF file in PDF reduces image quality.

Hello,
I have a file with many multi-state picture frames and buttons for them. I export it in pieces in SWF format, then I put the SWF's back in the document as a new layer and export as interactive PDF. Finally everything worked fine, except that PDF opens in a larger then normal zoom and when zooming in on pictures the quality is very poor I am guessing 72ppi at the intended zoom. I check the SWF file and see that its image quality is good when zoomed, so the problem is with the way the PDF has exported the SWF.
notes: I made sure the settings were to export at 300ppi and high image quality. When I take a single multi-state frame with its associated button and export to SWF then PDF the image quality is maintained.... however I have over 150 image frames, so I rather not export them individually. Please, please reply... any suggestions will be gratefully excepted.

edit your image in photoshop and experiment with various settings/size. there's no magic high quality small file size setting.
it's a trade-off. the higher the quality and the greater the image dimensions, the greater the file size. you have to decide where those are acceptable.

Poor Image Quality -- Design View & Published Content (CP8)

If I prepare a high-quality image, picture perfect, sharp, sized to let's say 500 x 500 px in Photoshop (max JPG quality setting) and then dump into Captivate, I find that Captivate significantly degrades the image quality. It changes the sharpness of the image and destroys exposure settings like colour saturation and hue. Even if I publish to an LMS with 24-bit, no compression, it still looks degraded.
Is there any way to improve image quality?

I am on PC, not on Mac and have used this feature all the time since (not totally sure) version 5. Maybe it is a Mac bug?
This is a screenshot, I imported a Photoshop file 'IconsTips' and choose to import Layers as images, you'll see the folder with 6 images.

Improve image quality of VI when published on Internet

I'm using LabVIEW 6.02 and are publishing VI on the Internet. When I do that and are viewing them with the browser Explorer the grafichs details is bad. I have set the quality to be 100 and tried both png and jpeg format!Is there other things that I can do to improve the image quality in explorer? When I use the Netscpe browser, the graphics is perfect....I was hoping that is possible to do in Explorer as well....
If you want you can go and have a look at the VI display
at: http://134.7.139.176/.monitor?Performance%20Display.vi&type=png&refresh=20&lifespan=240
Hope someone can help me!Best regards Anne

Hi Michael, and thanks for your answerI did as you said, disabled the autosizing and it worked!!But It would be better if I could size the panel relativ to the resolution of the monitor in IE. I tried that in LabVIEW, I went to the front panel of the VI, selceted file>>VI properties. Then I selected Window size and placed a checkmark in the Maintain proportion of window for different Monitor resolutions chechboks. I also placed a check mark in the scale all objects on panel. But this didn't work?Is there another way of doing this?
Regards Anne

Animated (up state) button image quality

Hello,
I am experienced with Captivate and getting familiar with
Flash MX.
I am having trouble with loss of detail (blurry images) when
importing flash into Captivate.
In flash, I've created a simple button. It has a movie clip
in its up state that makes the button "pulse". It has a graphic
symbol for over, down, and hit states. I have published the swf
with no compression and %100 "JPEG quality". When I preview the
swf, it looks and responds to the click well. The button is a
"NEXT" button that will eventually be used to "continue" the movie.
It is about 108 pixels in width and 40 pixels high. It is based on
images I already use for my NEXT button which was created using the
Image Button functionality of Captivate.
(NOTE: I have not tried to attach any action script to my new
button yet because I am still struggling with image quality in
captivate.)
Since it can't be imported as a "button", I have imported it
as an animation. (I am well aware of the issues animations cause
with "losing focus" and such. Just click a library item and then
move on.)
After inserting the animation, the upstate does pulse, the
over state lights up when I mouse over, and the down state displays
when I click. But, the image is noticeably Fuzzy. It is easy to
measure just how fuzzy and bad it looks by putting my test button
right next to an image of the up and over states in captivate OR
opening the new button in flash player and looking at it next to
the images in my image editing software. My images for up and over
are crisp and clear, The animation in flash player is crisp and
clear, but the flash animation in Captivate is quite fuzzy. I do
not think the issue is in flash or in the way the swf was created.
(NOTE: I actually had to import "big" png images into flash,
resize them smaller, then make them into graphic symbols in order
to make the image quality good enough in flash itself. Simply
importing to the Flash library seemed to make images fuzzy too, but
I've gotten around that issue by shrinking bigger images.
...honestly it works.)
I want to know if there is anything I can do about this. Any
insight into getting better image quality of animations in
Captivate is greatly appreciated. As it stands the fuzzy images
just look unprofessional and I can’t use my cool pulsing
button.
Thanks for your insights.

While using the fill option for button , you can define the position and fitting for the image.
Thanks,
Sanjit

Maximize image quality

Under Preferences I have set the image quality to 'high' but
I still get blurring in images (SnagIt) screen shots which I insert
into PowerPoint. When viewing in PPT the images are very clear. But
after Presenter has converted them to Flash and published them to
Adobe server the images become significantly blurred. Is there any
other way to improve the image quality? For example - using a
certain file type to insert images into PPT, a setting in PPT, a
setting in SnagIt, or a different setting in Presenter? Or, is this
just the reality of converting PPT to Flash?
Any help is appreciated
thanks

Unfortunately, Breeze applies some rather heafty compression
on bitmap images, including gifs/jpgs and pngs.
Others have reported that you can improve detail of
screenshots a bit by using Captivate to capture the screenshots and
then export the imagery as a .swf. Then, go back to the Breeze menu
and trace down to the Insert Flash option to import the swf created
in Captivate. Results are usually better, but it does require
having to take an alternative approach. And for folks who don't
have Captivate, it might not be a practical approach either.
Two other possible solutions, but both require the right kind
of software to do it: If you have other applications that export as
.swf (like Illustrator, Freehand, etc), you might want to try
importing your screenshot and then exporting as a swf from there,
or you could do the same thing right from Flash if you have it.
Hope that helps!
Rob

How to prevent degradation of image quality when pasting for collage?

I am trying to do a collage (of family heirloom old pharmacy jars and bottles) from – eventually – about a dozen separate images in Photoshop CS6. (A variety of sizes, resolutions, qualities and file types will go into the collage, but I wish to retain the image quality of each component at its original level or very close to the original level, even those in some cases the original quality is marginal.)
I have set up in Photoshop a “background document” at 300 dpi of the right dimensions to paste into my InDesign document (5.1 X 3.6 cm)
I have tried >six approaches, all of which have resulted in a degradation of the subsequently pasted-in image (not just slight, but very obvious).
Clearly I’m missing something fundamental about image quality and handling images so that degradation is minimised or eliminated.
(1) (1) Using an internet video as a guide – using Mini Bridge to open all the images in PS6 as tabs along the top of the workpage. Then dragging the first one into the base document. It comes across huge – ie I only see a small fraction of the image. Any attempt to Edit/Transform/Scale (to 14% of the pasted image, which in this case is a jpg of 3170 x 1541 at 1789 dpi, 4.5 x 2.2 cm) results in an image that looks horribly degraded compared with what I pasted (open in another window).
(2) (2) Same thing happens if I have each image as a new layer on top of the base document.
(3) (3) I tried changing the image that I had put into Layer 2 into a Smart Object and then resized it. No further ahead – it still looks horrible.
(4) using a different image [an 800 dpi JPG 3580 x 1715 Pixels, print size (from dpi) 11.4 x 5.4 cm which despite those parameters is of barely acceptable quality] I have tried (a) changing the resolution to 300 dpi, (b) keeping the number of pixels the same (which results in a dpi of over 3000 but doesn't fix the problem; (c) changing the dimensions to a length of 3 cm [about right for the collage] .... but no matter what I do, by the time the image is positioned correctly on the layer, the image quality has gone from barely acceptable to absolutely horrible. That usually happens during the final resizing (whether by numbers or shift-dragging the corners of the image).
Grateful for any step-by-step strategy as to how best to accomplish the end – by whatever means. (Or even in a different program!). Basically, even though I've used images for many years in many contexts, I have never fundamentally understood image size or resolution to avoid getting into such messes. Also, I'm on a very steep learning curve with Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator all at the same time - these all seem to handle images differently, which doesn't help. [Not to mention MS Publisher, which I'm locked into for certain other things...]

For the individual images, don't worry about the ppi or as you call it dpi (ppi is the correct term BTW) only worry about the pixel dimensions. If the pixel dimensions gets too low, it will look horrible as there is not enough data to work with.
Therefore the final document that will house all the other images must be large enough in pixel dimensions to handle the smaller images at a high enough dimension that they will look good.
That being said, if you can load your images in as smart objects as any scaling that takes place samples the original sized document. Making it possible to scale it down to a size that is barely visible and then reset the size back to where it was and have no loss of data.
Where the ppi will come into play is when you are ready to print the final document, that is when the ppi will tell the printer at what size to print the document on the page.
If your collage will span more than one page, you may want to do this in InDesign. All images are linked to their respective container (similar process as smart object in theory) Though I beleive smart objects are embedded which is debatable.
In both InDesign and Illustrator, scaling the image in the document affects the ppi of the image, scaling down would increase the ppi whereas scaling upward would decrease the ppi as the number of pixels (the pixel dimension) has not changed.
With photoshop, you have a choice, when scaling the entire document, you have the option to resample the image, doing so affects the pixel dimension and in that instance would degrade the image when scaling downward and bluring the image when scaling up. As photoshop is removing pixels when scaling down and guessing the neighbor pixels should be when scaling upward.
But, when resampling is off, the pixel dimensions do not change and therefore there is no degration or bluring.
Why this happens has to do with simple math.
inches x ppi = pixels
Knowing any two of the above forumula will give you the third.
When resampling is enabled, the pixels can change and when it is disabled, it is fixed so only the other two values can change.

MIssing image quality warning!? (yellow triangle !)

so in photo 10, when adding low quality / low resolution images to my books or calendars, i used to get a yellow triangle warning me that the quality is not good enough. i also got the warning when enlarging a photo beyond a certain point.
since upgrading to iphoto 11, i can NEVER get this warning to show up?
even when i place obviously low quality / low resolution images, and i enlarge them, I don't see that icon?! no matter what i do, the icon doesn't come up!
has Apple removed this warning? does everyone have it except me? is it an option to turn on and off? this is driving me crazy!

I just spent a week creating my annual family calendar in iPhoto '11, didn't see the yellow low-quality image warning triangles from past iPhoto versions and assumed all the photos were decent enough to publish. Boy was I wrong. When I went to order the calendars, during the assembly process I kept getting low-quality image messages, but it only gave the name of the photo file and stopped processing at that page. It didn't show me what photo it was, so I had to figure out which image it was by using "spotlight" and entering the file name. What a pain in the ***.
Once I fixed the offending image, I had to start the entire order process over again, reconfirm payment and shipment information, only to keep getting a low-quality image error message again, and again, and again. It couldn't have saved all the poor-quality images messages for 1 message, so I could fix all the problematic images at once and only have to resubmit the order once. No, it only told me image by image, page by page, if there was a problem, causing me to have to resubmit my order 7 times. It took me 45 minutes to finally order my calendar. I am not happy. I've been ordering my calendars through iPhoto since 2008 and have never had this much difficulty with image-quality messages and order processing.
The photos that caused the error messages were those that other people had sent me that weren't very good quality, and that I had edited once placed in the calendar. Once I deleted the edited version and replaced with the original version, I didn't get an error message. If the image was just too poor quality to begin with and I couldn't use the edited version, then I replaced it altogether.
I just don't know if anyone else has had this much trouble with uploading and ordering their calendars. I hope Apple reinstates the low-quality image warning system that tells us BEFORE we try to place an order which images may have problems. Or at least just give us ONE error message after assembling the calendar that includes ALL the offending images (including the thumbnails, not just the file names), so we don't have to go back over and over and over again and have the ordering process be so incredibly frustrating.

How to export a fireworks file to flash while retaining image quality?

I created a banner for our website using fireworks cs3. Part of the banner has aimation (basically a slide show of 6 photos). I've tried to export the files by saving the frams to files, but when I do this, the image quality really gets bad. When I try to change the export settings and change the dither, everything but the last frame looks better and the last frame looks like a yellow color is splattered all over it....I've tried just saving the file as an .swf file but when I do so, the file doesn't work when I insert it into my web page, it doesn't work. Is there a better way to do this? Can I export as something else then import into flash and still retain my image quality? Thanks for any input and help!

How are you inserting the file?
Flash objects need to be placed in an object tag...as described here: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/415/tn_4150.html

Is iWeb 08's image quality horrible?...

Has Apple resolved the image quality problems we are having?
Does anyone have a workaround for the poor image quality we're getting in iWeb - one that doesn't involve converting images to swf and embedding as a web snippet.
If others are experiencing the same problems with image quality please speak up and voice your experiences.

You might want to just check this thread if you're looking for others experiencing the same problem.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1078666&tstart=0

Poor image quality for uncompressed .jpg files

Hello,
I am importing in uncompressed .jpg files that I have made
smaller in Photoshop, but didn't modify compression. This is the
original format at they are stock photos. My project preferences
for jpg files are set to 100. When I import them and publish my
project, the image quality is sub- standard where areas of the
picture are blurry and fadded.
Since the images started as jpg files, recompressing them or
saving them as bmp files which Captivate likes, is not an option.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Lisa Forman

Hi Rick,
I didn't notice the slide property dialog that is set to
default to Standard. This should help. thanks.
By the way, I am still having major problems with the issue I
emailed you directly last week with all the attachment files. I
know you are busy, but if you have time to revisit, I'd appreciate
it. I don' t have a solution and need to deliver next week.
Threads -
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=464&threadid=1277469
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=464&threadid=1276942
Thank for your time,
Lisa Forman

Image Quality in Published .SWF

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