Saving after editing a photo

[Lynn Zant]

I had a hard drive failure and got PSP2020 after using an older version for 14 years.  I used to open a photo, crop it, edit it, hit the close button, and say "yes" to save changes.  In the 2020 version, there is a slider bar for resolution.  Hitting the save button after editing will turn my 8MB photo into a 4MB photo.  If I go the close route and use the slider to max, it turns my 8MB photo into an 18MB photo.

 

Is there a quick way to edit photos and have them save around the same size as the original photo?  I don't want to have to look at each photo, record it's size, and play with the slider.  I understand cropping to 4x6 size will reduce the file size some, and that's okay, but I didn't even crop the photo when I tried the save function--it cut the file size in half.  And, I don't want to more than double a file size by using the slider to max.

 

I don't just use photos for scrapbooking--I also print them all, so I like to manually crop each one to 4x6.  And, I seem to be in the minority of people who override the original to save the edited copy.

 

Any help is appreciated.

[Cassel]

Hi Lynn. Welcome to the Campus. This feature has been introduced with version X8 to allow users to set the compression value as needed when they saved so they would have more control over the end result. I am really not sure why it would actually make the file size larger since using the JPG optimizer, still creates a smaller file, even with a compression set to 1 (the minimum).

 

I did a search on the Corel user-to-user forum and found someone asking a similar question. Maybe this would help?

 

https://forum.corel.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=63839

 

Here are more discussions on the WHY about the compression issue:

 

https://forum.corel.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=63762

 

https://forum.corel.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=63741

 

Hopefully, that will help.

[Lynn Zant]

Thanks so much!  After all that reading, I'm just as confused as before.  LOL  I have found that newer versions of software doesn't always mean it's a better version.  This is probably just one of those problems that I'll have to work around and find a way to deal with it.  It's a shame because I also have PSE but I don't like it nearly as much for editing, and I really want to stick with PSP.

[Cassel]

Yeah, so basically, the file size will depend on the source or where the file is. A 5 MB file on your memory card would possibly be a different "size" on your computer or somewhere else and might depend on the image itself too (colors, contrast, etc.).

 

The Save button will keep the setting you have selected last in the Save As... If you don't have any storage space issue, you might want to keep the compression set at 1 and have the highest quality you can get. If space might be an issue, you can check what compression level will yield a file size that is comparable to what you are starting with. Unless you want to turn a photo into a billboard, I think the compression might not make that much difference (as long as you don't go to a value of 25+).