Maintaining Quality HD with Reasonable File Size

I've just completed a 1/2 hour HD film (1440x1080) and I have been trying to get it to a file size that's under 2gigs. I am finding that the compressor settings either make the file size too low (degrading the picture quality), or too high (9+gigs!). Tried the h.264 LAN preset but the quality was not good enough. I want to find that sweet spot hopefully in mkv or mp4 format. Any ideas?
Thanks!
~shiva

Well, it's hard to predict what someone else will want. Your "sweet spot" is different from someone else's.
You said you wanted it under 2GB. The H.264 for LAN preset aims for 632MB per hour. Did you try increasing the bitrate? And did you make sure it was set for your full resolution, and was not scaling it down?
Jeremy

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Premiere Pro CS4: Exporting to High Quality SWF with Low File Size

Adobe Program: Premeire Pro CS4 (to build slide show video)
Adobe Program: Adobe Media Encoder (to export project into flash file)
Project Details: A 20 minute slide show with still images and audio.
Project Source: HDV 720p, 29.97 fps
Objective: Export slide show into a flash file so it can be watched online. The file must be small enough for most people to be able to stream the video but good quality (like videos found at Hulu.com).
Problem: I'm struggling to find an export setting that will let me maintain both good quality and a small file size.
The export setting that allows the best quality is:
Format: FLV / F4V
Preset: F4V - HD 720p
File Size: 800MB
Troubleshooting History: I have tried the following Presets:
F4V - Same as Source
F4V - 1080p Source, Half Size
F4V - 720p Source, Half Size
F4V - 720p Source, Half Size, VBR 2pass
F4V - Web Large, Widescreen Source
While the file size is much reduced with these Presets, I lose too much video quality.
Inquiry: Does anyone have advice for meeting my listed objective?

I understand that if you want a smaller file you must sacrifice quality and if you want better quality you must expect a larger file size. I am looking for a solution in between the two extremes (again, I draw on the example of Hulu.com). Mainly, I am looking to reduce the file mentioned above from 800MB to about half that.
Does anyone know a way to manipulate the export settings to make that possible and still maintain as high a picture quality as possible?

Action to export with maximum file size

I'm looking to export a whole load of images that must not exceed 20Mb. I'm sure this is possible to set up, but how?
Thanks in advance

Photoshop simply doesn't give you a "target size or smaller" capability directly, so folks are trying to be creative in helping you. A simple "Thanks, but I really need these big files" would do.
Keep in mind there are a lot of folks using Photoshop who don't know the difference between "JPEG file size on disk" and "photographic file size". If you want folks to understand that you DO know better, consider writing more than a single sentence in your original post. Expecting people to assume you're an expert right after posting a basic question seems a bit of a stretch.
You're saying that, with an RGB 8 bits/channel image, do File - Save As, choose JPEG, then look at the estimated file size in the JPEG save dialog and adjust the quality level - because it's manual - isn't good for you. You need automation. Fair enough.
Chances are you could do something with Photoshop's Scripting facility. I imagine it might have to be iterative (e.g., pick a quality level, save, check file size, adjust quality level, repeat...). The forum for that is down the hall. There are some very talented people there who give freely of their time. Please try not to insult them.
http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop/photoshop_scripting
-Noel

Exporting video and keeping a reasonable file size

Hi there,
I think I am posting in the correct section (Leopard Upgrade from Dec 07 - not upgraded iLife since so does that make it iMovie HD 6? (am away from the Mac right now)).
I enjoy using iMovie but one thing that bugs me is the Expert settings when exporting to a file.
For example I have a 30 minute video which I downloaded from a Mini DV camcorder. Now I have done the editing etc but when I go to export it I find that the defaults settings do not give me what I want (640x480 resolution and basic sound quality). So I use the expert settings and play around with them. So far I have placed the settings I want and exported as an .avi and a .mov, I forget which way around it was but one was about 4.5GB! and the other was 700Mb - it is a very simple video - not a lot of movement, its a video of an interview.
Now on a Windows machine I expect I could export to a .wmv and it would be great quality at under 100MB.
So, I ask the experts, where am I going wrong in not achieving a good video quality at a manageable file size? I know I could pay up and install the Flip4Mac Studio software but I am sure Apple have provided an equivalent solution that I have not found.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Jack

640x480 is a bit 'exotic' if your source is PAL ...
the smaller the res, the dramatic smaller is file size ..
try in the expert dialog h264 as codec, if you have low action, try 15 or 12fps, make audio mono..
you can downsize resulting file by playing around with the quality settings of h264 ..

Exporting with specific file size possible ?

Hi,
say I have master files in the region of 50 - 350Mb and need to upload the versions at best possible JPEG quality with a file size restriction of say 8Mb.
How would you do this straight out of Aperture ?
AppleScript ?
Thanks for any pointers,
chris

Thanks Ian,
I thought so.
If anybody could point me to a nice AppleScript/Automator workflow that could help me with full size exports on Finder level, please let me know.
Thanks a lot in advance,
chris

XSLT with large file size

Hello all,
I am very new to XSL. I have been reading a lot on it. I have a small transformation program which takes an xml file, an xsl file and performs the transformation. Everything works fine when the file size is in terms of KB. When I tried the same program with the file size of around 118MB, it is giving me out of memory exception. I would appreciate any comments to make my program work for bigger file size. I am posting my java code and xsl file
public static void xsl(String inFilename, String outFilename, String xslFilename) {
try {
// Create transformer factory
TransformerFactory factory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
// Use the factory to create a template containing the xsl file
Templates template = factory.newTemplates(new StreamSource(
new FileInputStream(xslFilename)));
// Use the template to create a transformer
Transformer xformer = template.newTransformer();
// Prepare the input and output files
Source source = new StreamSource(new FileInputStream(inFilename));
Result result = new StreamResult(new FileOutputStream(outFilename));
// Apply the xsl file to the source file and write the result to the output file
xformer.transform(source, result);
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
System.out.println("Exception " + e);
} catch (TransformerConfigurationException e) {
// An error occurred in the XSL file
System.out.println("Exception " + e);
} catch (TransformerException e) {
// An error occurred while applying the XSL file
// Get location of error in input file
SourceLocator locator = e.getLocator();
int col = locator.getColumnNumber();
int line = locator.getLineNumber();
String publicId = locator.getPublicId();
String systemId = locator.getSystemId();
System.out.println("Exception " + e);
System.out.println("locator " + locator.toString());
System.out.println("line : " + line);
System.out.println("col : " + col);
System.out.println("No Exception");
xsl file :
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:element name="Hosts">
<xsl:apply-templates select="//maps/map/hosts"/>
</xsl:element>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="//maps/map/hosts">
<xsl:for-each select="*">
<xsl:element name="host">
<xsl:element name="ip"><xsl:value-of select="./@ip"/></xsl:element>
<xsl:element name="known"><xsl:value-of select="./known/@v"/></xsl:element>
<xsl:element name="targeted"><xsl:value-of select="./targeted/@v"/></xsl:element>
<xsl:element name="asn"><xsl:value-of select="./asn/@v"/></xsl:element>
<xsl:element name="reverse_dns"><xsl:value-of select="./reverse_dns/@v"/></xsl:element>
</xsl:element>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
Thanks,
Namrata
</xsl:stylesheet>

One thing you could try to do is avoid using xpath like ".//" and "*".
I had many problems in terms of memory consuptiom and performance with xpaths like above.
Altrought you have a little more work to code your xslt it performs better, and probably you will write once and run many times.

Mov to avi but at a reasonable file size and res.

I want to convert a .mov file to .avi and have the avi at a file size of betwen 20-30MB - at the moment when I export from quicktime pro its' coming up with a file size of over 1GB - any suggestions much appreciated

I want to convert a .mov file to .avi and have the avi at a file size of betwen 20-30MB - at the moment when I export from quicktime pro its' coming up with a file size of over 1GB - any suggestions much appreciated
AVI is a file format and not a compression format. To be able to accomplish your goal here, you need to do two things:
1) Select an AVI compatible audio and video compression format that allows you to limit the audio and video data rates. (I.e., some compression formats have fixed or automatic data rates while others can be limited by the user.)
2) Once you have selected appropriate compression formats, you must calculate the maximum audio + video data rate combination that meets your target file size requirements. Unfortunately, this combined "target" data rate depends on the duration of the file you are creating and, since you did not include this info here, it is not possible for anyone to calculate this for you.

Balance Image Quality with Small File Size

I need to first express that I'm a fully self-taught Flash designer. No one has ever sat down and tried to explain to me the DOs and DONTs about Flash. I have followed tutorials, books, and anything else I can get my hands on, but never a person. People of Flash seem to be very hard to find, in my personal experience.
I am the most comfortable with Photoshop, knowing very little about Illustrator or Fireworks.
That said, I have been asked to create a 45KB (yikes!) max file, rotating 3 .jpg images I created from other .jpgs given to me. The images are usually large, so I am given room to compress them for a 300px x 250 px stage.
However, these images are always my biggest culprit for my huge file size. I'll import them in, making them into Graphic Symbols, but nothing seems to prevent the enourmous file size.
When given the raw images, I would throw them into Photoshop, make the files the correct 300x250 size. Then I have tried: saving the image at the best resolution in .jpg and .png form, and then I tried saving the images as low-as-I-could-stomach quality. I hardly see a difference with file size when they are imported into Flash and used.
I was told to use Fireworks's Optimize function, which I did, but it made my .swf even bigger!
When I have my Flash piece all set up/animted as I want, but I need to replace the bitmap(.jpg/.png) photos, I will:
right click on the bitmap to get properties, "upload" the new image to be used, adjust the Quality, having "Allow smoothing" unclicked.
I understand I should make as much of the graphics in Flash as I can, instead of Import, but I am primarily given photographs to use.
Seeing what my previous peers have done is mind-puzzling, but they are not around, so I cannot ask them for their advice. Their files are under 45KB and look sharp and amazing:
http://creative.freedominteractive.com/clients/atep/banners2/
http://creative.freedominteractive.com/clients/fountainvalleyschool/banners/
http://creative.freedominteractive.com/clients/BranchGymnastics/
I am hoping someone can help me get my .jpg files under control. Thank you in advance for your help.

You're certainly on the right track by sizing and optimizing the photos in Photoshop. Are you using optimize for web or save as? Jpgs are your best bet, I find the a 40 quality is just about the point the quality starts badly degrading. In Flash, the only other things you didn't mention is the frame rate and JPEG compression setting in publish settings. Frame rate has a bigger impact on file size than the additional compression. Also, are you using keyframes for teed ing or the AS tween class? This I don't know for sure if it affects file size, but it just seems that motion Tweens with keyframes would add to the size. How far away from the target are you?

What do I loose with "Reduce File Size" to Acrobat 8.0 compatability?

When scanning documents using the Acrobat interface in 9.0, I find that the file sizes are very large...about 1.5MB per page. If I then select the "reduce File Size" option from the Document tab, and select Acrobat 8.0 and later compatibility, the file size is reduced by 10 fold....to something approaching 150 KB per page. I don't see degradation of the scanned image on my screen....but am I loosing image quality?

I tried it at home & I used the optimize pdf thing. It went from 17MB to 12MB so I re-optimized it & got it down to 3MB. It's as good as it is going to get. The big problem is that the .pdf that I have was scanned on a copier machine.
I printed the 3MB pdf on the color printer & it came out okay, but then I printed it on the black & white printer & it barely had any ink on the page....
I am just going to not bother with it anymore. Not much I can do with a scanned document & it's not even my job to begin with!
Thanks Bill.
Jules

JSX Save PNG for web, quality parameter not changing file size

Hi
I have a script that uses this snippet of code to save png files for web. But, no matter what number I change the quality, the resulting file size and image fidelity remains the same.
I was wondering if I can save pngs for web at smaller byte size with JSX and how to modify the output settings.
docName = sourceDoc.name;
NamesaveRef = new File( outputFolder + "/" + docName );
var NewfileRef = new File( NamesaveRef )
var options = new ExportOptionsSaveForWeb();
options.format = SaveDocumentType.PNG;
options.transparency = true;
options.blur = 0.0 ;
options.includeProfile = false ;
options.interlaced = false ;
options.optimized = true ;
options.quality = 3 ;//THIS NUMBER DOES NOT CHANGE QUALITY IF CHANGED FROM 0.1 TO 100
options.PNG8 = false ;
sourceDoc.exportDocument(File( NamesaveRef), ExportType.SAVEFORWEB, options);
app.activeDocument.close(SaveOptions.DONOTSAVECHANGES);
Thanks for your help.
Aubrey

PNG does not have a quality setting. The quality property is used when exporting jpeg. That is why changing that property has no effect with PNG files.
Photoshop now supports PNG compression but as far as I can tell you have to use Action Manager to save. I don't see a compression option when using saveForWeb.

Save for Web with Optimize File Size for Batch Process

I have a client who needs to be able to run a batch process on jpg images ranging in size from 600KB to 2.5MB optimizing their file size as close to 200KB as possible. The feature is included in Photoshop's save for web optimize dialog but it doesn't work for batch processes. If you record an action with the optimize to file size option set it processes all the images in the batch based on the quality settings required to resize the image you used during recording, meaning if the image you recorded was 1.5MB the quality setting might be 70 percent to hit the 200KB mark but that wouldn't be the correct quality setting for a 600KB file nor a 2.5MB file those would either be too small or too large.
I've done quite a bit of searching both online and in the photoshop scripting forums but I haven't been able to find anything that would point me in the right direction.
My client's paying for this work so if there's someone who knows how to script this who'd rather be paid than just do some pointing we can arrange for that quite easily.
Thanks in advance for your assistance and suggestions.
In case it's of importance we're using Photoshop CS4.

If you don't mind spending a few bucks on a shareware prog, Jpegsizer has the option to save to a filesize.
You can find it here.
http://www.tangotools.com/jpegsizer/register.htm
There is a free trial version, but you can't save files.

Serious quality loss with MTS files and iMovie '11

Hello,
I have some issues with my brand new Panasonic HDC SD700 (a full HD camera)
I experience serious quality loss when I use iMovie to create a movie.
I did some tests, but still puzzled int this world of codecs and formats.
Maybe some of you can help.
I have made a short shot of 450 sec with highest mode (1080p 24fps)
It show is finder as a .MTS file size 99MB, I'm very happy with the quality when I play this with VLC.
iMovie turns this file into a .mov file with 635MB size, in Apple Intermediate Codec, Linear PCM, Timecode. This quality is already poor compared to original MTS file.
No wonder that the output file (select 1080p H.264 codecs) results also in unacceptable quality.
I'm running latest imOvie version with all updates etc.
I have no idea were to look to solve this issue. It is quite annoying since I have invested in a top Cam recorder. Not sure is Final cut express will sure the issue either.....

I have made a short shot of 450 sec with highest mode (1080p 24fps)
Have you tried shooting at the PAL standard of 25fps? I checked the specs for your Panasonic but didn't see any mention of a 24fps mode, but most reviews seem to miss mentioning the shooting modes. If you did indeed shoot at 24fps, did you choose this frame rate when importing to iMovie '11?
I export as 1080p (same as original. My output is a bit blurry and colors are a bit pale.
Did you use the 1080p preset under Share to Media Browser, or Export using QuickTime? If the latter, be sure to select an appropriate data rate - if set too low this may result in poor quality output.
And yes you are right I'm using IMovie '11, quite confusing that '11 means version 9.0
Yes - very confusing! In the forums, iMovie versions are generally referred to by their year number, not version number. It's a pity that we have version 9.0 (iMovie '11) and iMovie '09.
Glad you liked the video - it looked very clear on YouTube at 1080p Full Screen, at least to my ageing eyes!
John

What's a reasonable file size for a poster?

Hi everyone,
I've created a poster that is going to be printed on 2 by 1,5 metres. It's in .eps format but it's like 2GB large. It has 118 ppi.
How can I compress this a little without damaging the quality?
Thank you so much for your help =)

Good day!
Why eps?
Both pdf and eps can employ lossy compression (jpg) but that does naturally affect the image quality, though with high Quality settings the effect may be practically imperceptible.
118 ppi sound sufficient for that size.
Resolution for print viewing distance
Regards,
Pfaffenbichler

Save Captivate 5.5 (.cptx) files in Captivate 7 (.cptx) with huge file size results.

I have been opening and saving Captivate 5.5 (.cptx) files in Captivate 7 (.cptx). The problem is that after saving a file in Captivate 7, the file size increases substantially from the original Captivate 5.5 file size. Can this be avoided or corrected? Thanks!

You're a star. I'd already done the switching off the page thumbnails and reducing page performance. I hadn't thought about cross-references! That's certainly a possibility.
I've just done the "Save As" twice - and that first file is down to 1,100 KB - which is a huge reduction from it's previous size! It's still growing already though - just updating the numbers in the book has taken it from 800 KB up to the new 1,100 without me doing anything else (not even opening it myself). Track Changes is (I believe) switched off ... in Edit > Preferences, unless there's somewhere else...
Shoudl have thought of the Save As as well - used to have to do that with Word docs a few versions ago (not so much now).
Thanks again.
Alison

Duplicating images with smaller file size

How do I duplicate an image with a reduced file size without exporting?

If you right-click (control-click) on an image, you have the option to:
1) Duplicate Version
2) New Version from Master
Whichever you choose, you're only creating an additional "preview" that the system uses for editing, sharing, etc. It does not "create" a completely new image. Thereby keeping storage overhead to a minimum.
I guess what might be a pertinent question is, what are you wanting to do with the image?
Cheers
Kent

Maintaining Quality HD with Reasonable File Size

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