RAW Conversion to JPG file size question

I'm fairly new to Lightroom and have noticed when I convert from RAW to JPG my approx. 8MB RAW files become approximately 2-3MB JPG files. I have the program set to convert to JPG at the highest possible quality. I've had clients ask about the file size and would like to be able to explain this to them in simple terms but I first need to understand why this is the case myself! When I used a different processing program the converted files were only slightly smaller than the originals. Please explain!
Thanks!

It depends on the quality settings you use. JPEG files have I think 12 quality settings, with 12 being pretty big, and 8-10 being reasonable compromises.
This is lossy compression, so data is thrown away. The quality setting determines how much info is thrown away.
Only thing you can really do is export at a few quality settings and compare them, to see if YOU can see the difference.
For me, I don't really care about minimizing file size so I always choose highest quality.

Similar Messages

Question about RAW to JPG file sizes

Hello all, I have a question/concern in reference to file size changes when converting from RAW to JPG formats in PSE6. I've recently purchased a CANON 50D, and have started shooting in RAW format (actually RAW2+JPG). I have the CAMERA RAW 5.2 plugin and my workflow process is something akin to this:
1. Separate all RAW and JPG images into their respective folders.
2. Open the RAW folder in BRIDGE, and then open up a CR2 file. CR2 file is approx 15MB at this point, as reported in Finder.
3. Perform various corrections in ACR52 to the file, then do as SAVE AS to a DNG file.
4. Next step is to OPEN IMAGE, bringing it up in PSE6.
5. Make any necessary corrections to the picture, and then do a SAVE AS to a new file name and folder, selecting JPG format.
6. Selection MAX QUALITY from subsequent dialogue box, and SAVE.
When the file is saved, its now down to a mere 2.1 or 2.2MB, and when viewing its properties (vs. the same file that came from camera in JPG format), its down from a 44x66" format, to somewhere around 4x6" and 240dpi.
I've been doing some reading on this over the weekend, but cant explain away the severe loss in file size, and whether this is right, or if I'm doing something wrong in the process.
Appreciate any advice or suggestions to help improve my work processes, and ultimately the final photos!

Regarding your file size questions, have a look at this thread and see if it answers some of your questions:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/741532/0
> When the file is saved, its now down to a mere 2.1 or 2.2MB, and when viewing its properties (vs. the same file that came from camera in JPG format), its down from a 44x66" format, to somewhere around 4x6" and 240dpi.
Dimensions and resolution are related and multiple combinations can be produced from the same number of pixels. For example, your 50D at maximum image size produces 4,752 by 3,168 pixels. This full-size image could be printed at:
- 19.8 x 13.2 inches at 240 PPI
- 47.52 x 31.68 inches at 100 PPI
- 7.92 x 5.28 inches at 600 PPI
As you can maybe see, talking about dimensions and resolution doesn't make much sense until you are ready to consider printing. Note also that I used "PPI" or Pixels Per Inch since this is the slightly more correct terminology. DPI or "Dots Per Inch" is usually a reference to how a printer lays down the ink drops onto the paper. Many printers actually put more "dots" on the paper than there are pixels. Many people and companies use DPI when they mean PPI.
Now in your case you are apparently starting with an SRAW2 raw file. SRAW2 files from the 50D have a reduced number of pixels and are 2,276 pixels wide by 1,584 pixels high. At 240 PPI this would allow you to print the image at 9.9 by 6.6 inches. If you are ending up with something smaller than that, it means you have either re-sampled the image (changed the image so the same image is displayed with fewer pixels) or you have cropped the image.
Hope that helps.

How to reduce jpg file size, not pixel dimensions?

I am preparing images for the web and I really have 2 questions: one about gifs, and one about jpgs.
My standard procedure is to reduce the image to the desired pixel dimensions at 600 dpi
That gives me a crisp small image. then I either use it as is if the file size is low enough (I try for under 600 kb) or convert it to a gif with the save for web and devices tool.
So here are my 2 questions (I will count this solved with either answer)
1) When I convert to a gif I have the 4 boxes: one with original size, the other 3 with options but often the options are too low res for me How do I change my 3 options to start at a higher gif res?
2) If I try to reduce the file size of the jpg in the image size box I set the resolution lower ( 400, 300), which lowers the pixel dimensions and the filesize, but I don't want to cahnge the pixel dimensions. And If I reset the pixel dimensions back to the size I want them, even though it is a lower resolution the file size doesn't change. How to reduce jpg file size using only the resolution, not pixel dimensions? PS I have tried messing with checking and unchecking the 3 little boxes( scale styles, constrain proportions, and resample) but nothing has worked.

Gif is not a great filetype, especially if you want a crisp image. What are your pixel dimensions?
For web, it makes no difference what the dpi is, only the final pixel dimensions so once you have that as you want, use 'Save for Web and Devices' and you can lower the quality - 100% being max and 0% being lowest. I wouldn't save anything below 55%. For a 600kb image, your dimensions must be rather big.

Reduce jpg. file size

a website requires jpg. file size to be reduced to 5000kb. i'm at 1.1mb. how do i reduce it to the required size?
rsvp...

5000kb is 5 times larger than 1.1 MB
Anyway: File -> Export. In the resulting dialogue "Size" refers to the dimensions of the photo (length by breadth) and Jpeg Quality refers to the file size. Lower Quality means smaller file size.
Regards
TD

Iphoto increases jpg file size

Hi,
I've first noticed that iPhoto is re saving the AutoRotated images when importing them. I've realized this after seeing a lot of pictures in the Modified folder, when I've actually haven't done any editing on them...
But, more importantly, the JPG file size of the rotated image increased considerably. I've looked at the metadata with the exiftool and found that iPhoto is saving the JPG using the Big-endian byte order. I suspect this is the cause of the increased file size.
A concrete example:
mifoto0342.JPG 2986371
mifoto0342_iphoto.jpg 3765579
- Pancho

All other things being equal, the endianness of the EXIF will not affect the file size.
There must be something else that is changing in the file. Either the image is being recompressed (god forbid), or lots of metadata is being added (more likely).
- Phil Harvey

.jpg file size preview quit working

Using CS5 extended (v.12.0.1x32) in Windows 7 Entp (64bit): My save-as dialog has quit showing a preview of .jpg file size regardless of where the quality slider is set. This feature was working fine, and just seemed to quit. Now all I get is the short, horizontal line in place of a number, and no matter how long I wait, no file size number appears.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
ACB

Thank you very much for the suggestion. Unfortunately the problem persists.
Turning PS CS5 off and back on -- problem still present
Delete preferences file (via CTRL+SHIFT+ALT at startup) -- problem still present
Delete preferences file (xx...xx.psp) via search and delete -- problem still present
Reboot of OS -- problem still present
Roboot of OS, followed by steps above, followed by Reboot -- problem still present
Excellent idea... I hadn't thought of it; I wish it had worked. I'm open to any other suggestions.
Thanks,
ACB

Place .jpg from PS CS3 to IllusCS3-File size question

Newbie here- Good Morning
I am creating a doc in Illustrator that will ultimately be saved as a pdf for online viewing. In PS, I am increasing the images ppi from 72 to 300 as well as decreasing it's size, saving it at medium quality jpg and I get a file size around 175k(perfect for me). When I place the image in Illustrator and save the file, I get an overall document file size increase of over 800k.
Is there any way to avoid this?
Thanks!

It sounds as if you are embedding the image rather than linking it.
Either drag the image from the Finder or Bridge or else File-Place and check Link.
(If you drag from the Finder with Shift held down it will be embedded.)
There's usually no need to embed images unless you're prepraring HiRes pdf files for print, in which case it's best to leave the embedding until just before you save as pdf. Failure to embed images in print files may result in white horizontal lines cutting through the images.

JPG file size differences in ACR and PS

Camera: Nikon D80
Photoshop: CS3 Extended v.10.0.1
ACR: version 4.3.1
Saving from ACR, Q=9 -> 1,2Mb
Saving from ACR, Q=10 -> 1,8Mb
PS, Q=11 (no thumbnail) -> 3,1Mb
PS, Q=11 (with thumbnail) -> 3,1Mb (no difference)
PS, Q=12 (no thumbnail) -> 5,8Mb
PS, Q=12 (with thumbnail -> 5,8Mb (no difference)
Save for Web, Q=90: 3,7Mb (larger than PS/11)
Save for Web, Q=100: 5,8Mb (same as PS/12)
1.) Why ACR saves much smaller files?
2.) Why there isn't difference when saving with thumbnail or not?
3.) Why the different methods?
4.) Is any of them better? If yes: why the other? If not: why does it exist?
Saving from ACR produces much smaller files than any other known RAW converter. I've tried Bibble, Lightroom, CaptureNX, DxO and all of them created nearly the same size as Photoshop does. So the most important question: why ACR creates so small JPG files?
Thanks in advance!

Huhh,
the question isn't stupid, just seems a little bit strange in my point of view. But you're right, i must confess. So halfway i am the stupid, not the question (and not the software).
But when i choose 'maximum' in ACR it gives me the 10, and i thought maximum is the maximum. For me it tells about the highest possible quality. There is no value bigger than the maximum.
I've never realize that in PS the way is exactly the same like in ACR! In PS the maximum is 10 too!! I'm always enter the value by the keyboard and never choose a preset. And in PS there's a slider showing the full scale and the entered value, so on that i can see that there's life after the maximum. in ACR the missing slider suggested me that 10 is the top level. But now i've entered 11 and 12 and gave the same sizes as i gave from PS with 11 and 12.
So i can conclude that the GUI of ACR isn't perfect (OK, i *must* now it uses the same engine/values like PS), but the method behind the scenes is perfect, like in PS. Sorry for the trouble and thanks for the very fast answer!

File size questions

new to Apple MAC and iPhoto...so....I shot my new camera in jpeg, files are roughly 20mb...then I shot in RAW and after editing, the saved jpegs are ~ 5-10mb and up to 15mb....what happens to make this discrepency? how could my RAW converted jpegs be ~ 1/3 the size of straight out of camera jpegs?
another question...iPhoto is 1.7 gb, my iPhoto Library size it 37gb, but my pictures in iPhoto total 17gb.....is the discrepecy due to stuff like Slideshows I created? Faces just is referring the files right, not making duplicate files?...having trouble wrappping my head around stuff I''m seeing that doesn't add up...
thanks

It's all a bit more complex that that. There is no correlation between file size and the quality of a shot. A well exposed shot of 2 or 3 mb will print just as well as a well exposed shot of 25mb. There is no difference in what gets printed. A poorly exposed shot of 25mb will print like garbage.
It gets worse, we used to suggest a rule of thumb that printing at 300dpi was a reasonable giude to printing quality. Not any more. Printers and cameras have improved, iPhoto books are uploaded at something akin to 150 dpi.
Again, a 3 mb jpeg will print exactly as well as a 30 mb tiff.
Remember, the internet is full of high quality images that weigh in at a lot less than 500kb.
Where file size comes into play is when you're using destructive editing on a lossy format, like Jpeg, and, as I said above, that doesn't come into play in a non-destructive editing system like iPhoto.
The output from the export will - depending on the settings you use - either be smaller or larger than the jepg from a camera. It means very little - unless you're going to go an an edited destructively.

ACR converting raw into huge jpg files even at low quality

Hi Need help !!I am downloading raw files from canon 30d into bridge and processing RAW files in ACR.
When i have finished the edit I am clicking on save image and selecting jpg and then low quality. The RAw image is about 7mb and the converted low quality jpgs are also coming out to 7mb. These are far too big and is only a recent problem. I have re-installed photoshop but this has not fixed the problem.
By the way if I convert an image from raw that I haven't edited by the same process the file size is only 300kb
Would be very grateful if anyone has an answer to this

Thanks again Yammer
If I save as medium quality file size goes higher - over 13mb
Saving it as an uncompressed tiff sent the file size upto 1.5GB !!!!
The two installed versions were the 64bit version and the normal (32 bit ?)
I did uninstall and delete Adobe folders before reinstalling but as you say there may have been files left behind - will look into that
I paid £30 to adobe for there technical support - but getting nowhere at present as with their basic level support I think I need them to escalate to more qualified people.
I am wondering if the problem is with my pc due to the upscaling of file size when edits were done in Paint
Cheers
Mark

Elements increases JPG file size - case # 0181346249

I just asked this of Adobe. Couldn't find anything this specirfic in the forums, anyone have anything on this? Thanks in advance. Lee
~~~~~~~~~~~~
On/about 12/4/09 I upgraded Elements from 6 to 8. Since that date I have discovered that the file size for all JPG files managed by Elements has been increased by 5304, 5309 or 5310 bytes. This has complicated my backup scheme, now the backup program wants to replace all said files, in excess of 16,000 pictures.
What is Elements changing?
Is this documented?
The attached JPG shows the original file on right, the Elements managed file on left. The far right column shows the file size increase.

It may be that you have the Auto-Analyzer set to run automatically, and it has added some additional metadata (EXIF) to each of your files.
The PSE 8 Auto-Analyzer has some severe problems, and I recommend that you never run it. It will corrupt your map locations, split your video clips into "scene groups" that are hard to get rid of, modify the date/time of every file, crash frequently, make your computer very sluggish, and litter your folders with temporary files:
http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshop-elements-faq.htm#_Problems_with_the

** Reduce jpg file size...returns black image

Hey Guys,
I have this function to reduce the image file size.
It works but returns a black image when I view it.
This code is what I have found on other boards...I just can't seem to get it to work..
Any ideals??
Phil
======================================
                 try
                     FileInputStream inFile = new FileInputStream(imagePathName);
                     ImageIcon imageIcon = new ImageIcon(imagePathName);
                     Image image = imageIcon.getImage();
                     int height = image.getHeight(null);
                     int width = image.getWidth(null);
                     if(height > MAX_HEIGHT || width > MAX_WIDTH)
                         //See which one was over the most by percentage
                         float widthOver = (float)(height - MAX_HEIGHT) / (float)MAX_HEIGHT;
                         float heightOver = (float)(width - MAX_WIDTH) / (float)MAX_WIDTH;
                         int newWidth;
                         int newHeight;
                         if(widthOver > heightOver)
                             float ratio = (float)MAX_HEIGHT / (float)height;
                             newWidth = (int)(width * ratio);
                             newHeight = MAX_HEIGHT;
                         else
                             float ratio = (float)MAX_HEIGHT / (float)height;
                             newWidth = (int)(width * ratio);
                             newHeight = MAX_HEIGHT;
                         System.out.println("Original size was: width = " + width + " height = " + height);
                         System.out.println("New size is: width = " + newWidth + " height = " + newHeight);
                         System.out.println("Phil -- New size is: width ---> " + newWidth + " height ----> " + newHeight);
                         Image newImage = image.getScaledInstance(newWidth, newHeight, Image.SCALE_SMOOTH);
                         //============================
                         try
                             BufferedImage bufferedImage = createBufferedImage(newImage,newWidth,newHeight);
                             try
                                 File file77 = new File("newimage_ps.jpg");
                                 ImageIO.write(bufferedImage, "jpg", file77);
                                catch (IOException ioe)
                                  System.out.println("IOExcepotion caught: " + ioe.toString());
                         catch (Exception buffError)
                             System.out.println("IOExcepotion BufferedImage: " + buffError.toString());
                 catch(IOException ioe)
                     System.out.println("IOException reading: " + imagePathName + "\n" + ioe.toString());
// ==============================================================
    static public BufferedImage createBufferedImage(Image imageIn, int pass_newWidth, int pass_newHeight )
           System.out.println(" " );
             System.out.println("+++++ imageIn   " + imageIn.getWidth(null) );
             System.out.println("pass_newWidth " + pass_newWidth);
           System.out.println(" " );
//          BufferedImage bufferedImageOut = new BufferedImage(imageIn.getWidth(null),
//                                                             imageIn.getHeight(null),
//                                                             BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
          BufferedImage bufferedImageOut = new BufferedImage(pass_newWidth,
                                             pass_newHeight,
                                                             BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
          // Graphics g = bufferedImageOut.getGraphics();
          Graphics2D g2 = bufferedImageOut.createGraphics();
          g2.drawImage(imageIn, 0, 0, null);
         // g.drawImage(imageIn, 0, 0, null);
          return bufferedImageOut;
    }

>
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your reply..Your links sent me to this ...
Page Not Found
We are sorry, the page you have requested was not found on our system. >Ahh. That is because I foolishly hand edited those links and did not check them. They included 'api' twice.
In any case they were simply the links to the javadocs for those two classes.
Search [google for bytearrayoutputstream|http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=bytearrayoutputstream&meta=] and you will end up in the same or similar place.
As to using them, you simply put an appropriate ByteArray stream in place of the other streams (e.g. File based) that you were using.
I'd have to search for an actual example, but you could do the same (probably faster).
Edit 1:
Adding 'imageio' to 'bytearrayoutputstream' as a search led to this as top hit [Memory Efficiency of BufferedImage and ImageIO|http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5261937&tstart=0].
Edited by: AndrewThompson64 on Jul 6, 2008 2:37 PM

LR3 Export jpg File Size Inaccurate

I have a CR2 file 4752 x 3168 and 22.22 MB that I want to export to jpg. I select resolution of 72 with dimensions of 1024 x 683 (largest size of side is 1024) with a file limit of 150KB. I get a file that is 155 KB with the indicated dimensions/resolution. I set the maximum file size to 130 KB and get a file that is 155 KB. I have to set the limit at 100KB to keep the file size under 150KB. I can do the same thing in CS5 using the Save to Web without any problems.
It should not be that difficult to convert and resize an image for web imports limits.

Thank you. Maybe they will get everything corrected before they release 3.2 for production.
Regards,
Mike

Raw conversion to JPG better with DPP than ARC 5.X

I started testing conversion from raw to jpg with Canon's Digital Photo Professional and ARC 5.x (CS4) and noticed a much better conversion with DPP. At low ISOs does I don't see much difference, however at 800+ it is very noticeable. I hate to give up the work flow of Bridge and ACR and go back to using DPP. Is there anything that can be done to improve this?

Quoting from an old post of mine, with apologies to all who have read it before:
This has been covered ad nauseam here. Please do a forum search for more details.
Camera manufacturers, Canon and Nikon in particular, perform in-camera RAW to JPEG conversions designed to generate the over-saturated, over-contrasty and over-sharpened images that appeal to most amateurs.
Their stand-alone RAW conversion software also performs the same conversion to your RAW images.
Noise is also hidden by compressing the shadows so you don't see much of the noise inherent in the image.
Adobe Camera Raw, ACR, on the other hand, comes with default settings designed to give you the most detail possible
(even if this sometimes means revealing some of the noise hidden by the camera manufacturers in their RAW conversion software), as well as the most natural images.
That being said, you can calibrate your camera to ACR and come up with your own settings to produce exactly what you want, including the JPEG-look of the camera manufacturer, and save that as your profile.
The key is to learn how to use ACR properly and to calibrate your camera to ACR.
The camera calibration refines the settings by letting you adjust for the exact sensor response of your individual camera unit rather than the average of a sampling of such unites provided by Adobe.
The ACR defaults are nothing more than a suggested starting point.
The color temperature won't necessarily match either.

Linked Smart Objects - File Size Question

Hey guys,
first time using linked smart objects and I was pretty excited about it at first. I have a large photoshop file with 1920x1080 image assets. The file size is about 1GB and everytime I make a minor change the entire file has to be re-uploaded to my Dropbox.
So I figured that I could make all these image assets linked smart objects so that I can keep the master file down in file size since most of the actual assets don't change. However, even the PSD that contains nothing by linked smart layer objects is already 400MB large. And that's in addition to the external PSD's it is now linking to.
Even if I duplicate a linked smart layer object in this PSD file it increased the file size by an additional 10MB per duplicate. Is this supposed to happen? Why does it take so much space to just link to external objects? I was super excited about using linked smart layer objects but this doesn't look like it would be helping much to decrease file size.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated!
Thanks,
Philipp

Hey Chris,
thanks again! I guess I just had different expectations. In my mind I was going to see a parent file around 10MB or something with all of the content being dynamically loaded from the linked smart objects.
Maybe that could be a feature requests for future versions.

RAW Conversion to JPG file size question

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