Saving large photo for web, but quality is bad

[puppychew]

Hi,

I have been working on a photo in photoshop CS5 with many layers. I want the final image for my website to be 400x300. The image size is 2576x1932. I reduce the size gradually to first 2000x1500 and work my way down in increments to 400x300. (lynda.com tutorials stated that photos should not be reduced more than 25% at a time).

I then do a save to web and get an image that is very poor quality.

Do I need to flatten it first?

thanks

[iDad]

do not flatten or you'll lose layers

[puppychew]

Then what am I doing wrong and what should I do?

[hawkeye]

As far as reducing the size, for something that small and web use, you can just do it in one shot. What settings are you using to save the picture, jpg can be set from low quality to maximum.

[puppychew]

If I do a save to web without reducing the image size, the low- save to web size is 228k. I have a number of pictures and thought 228 would be high. (jpg)

I didn't so an image,save as

As far as my process to reduce the size - sometimes I have much much larger photos too - Is what I'm doing correct? Then again with this one it turned out bad.

[puppychew]

also - if I need the photo to be 400x300 on the web, shouldn't I first make it that size before saving to web?

[hawkeye]

The one shot statement meant just reduce the size in one shot. No need to do 25% at a time.

[ibclare]

I can't disagree with any of the above. I just never use the "save to web" option for jpegs, pngs, etc. I'd rather manipulate things myself. Including setting the resolution to 96%. Be sure to save at maximum quality.

I also decrease my image size and resolution in one step. I'm paranoid about screwing up like iDad said and losing my layers, etc. At least you don't have to flatten images anymore to save as jpegs, PS does it for you. I change my size, save as, then immediately go back to my psd and reverse the size change and resave it. But that's me.

The problem with doing it in multiple steps (if you save it each time that is) is that it is a jpeg and gets recompressed every time you make another jpeg. Eventually this will wreck your image and give you some ugly glowy edges around things. One shot!

[puppychew]

Oh - I see what you mean - I just did that because of what I heard on the tutorial.

I did it again, reducing the image size in one shot. I saved to web and size is 70. The picture is still very bad quality. What am I doing wrong?

[ibclare]

see my post above. I don't know if that will help or not . . . Just "save as" jpeg; don't use "save to web" and see what happens.

If it doesn't work, load up your psd for one of us to examine.