zaush
patreon
A Tale of Two Image Formats
🕑 Added 2019-07-10 07:47:46 +0000 UTC(TL;DR below)
When I first started on patreon, my usual format of choice was to post high bitrate JPG images. The quality is fairly good at 70%, nearly lossless at 90%, so most of the things I posted were within the 85-95% quality range. That was fine, until...
Basically, patreon intercepts jpeg images and re-compresses them. No matter what I upload, I always get an approximately identical file size and quality. It takes my already compressed JPG, slightly sharpens, then compresses again. This only showed up around 2 years ago if memory serves me.
Naturally, the solution would be to upload PNG instead of JPG, and that's exactly what I've done ever since. There are only a few problems with this... The first being that files tend to be nearly 5 times as large, depending on the image's contents. For a 5K resolution desktop wallpaper, that's something like 19-20MB. Compare that to under 5MB for a high quality JPG. The second problem is that windows can't seem to set wallpapers from PNGs that are this large.
The Solution
How do I solve this problem? After doing some tests, I've concluded that the file (post-processed) is around the equivalent of save for web at 90%. If I save at 100%, I get a file twice the size of the target quality, but with no artifacts whatsoever. The resulting image is nearly flawless, and is just as good as my own 90% save for web.
TL;DR
I'm going to be scanning through my submissions and including a JPG version of files in addition to the PNGs I'm already posting. It'll take some weeks or even months to achieve during my free time, but it seems necessary.
Comments
Zaush
It seems support for webp is not widespread enough to consider using it, especially with prior versions of iOS. Also, there's no native way of saving webp from photoshop, so for now I'll have to stick to these other formats. :<
Ariel Rosenfeld
Have you considered using webp? its supported by all browsers natively except explorer at this point, and give better results then jpeg
Zaush
I uh.. kinda don't like that place anymore. The politics there are really getting to me. I might update it someday, but for now patreon is my home base, and then twitter, then inkbunny.
X-menforever
Are you not in FA anymore? You haven't been updating there lately.
Spectre
Thank you for considering your fans like this ^.^
Ive even noticed this when i post on Deviantart, as images saved in jpegs are sharpened to express some subtle pixelation. Really hate that. I was thinking of creating pngs for all my works, but since you mention the save for web, i might consider doing just that. Thanks for sharing, glad someone started to notice this.
legojohn
I greatly prefer PNG
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sunkawakan
I actually prefer the larger format pics. I enjoy your work, and I love the detail that I get with PNG, regardless of the size of the file
Zaush
There still is! It's just that images suitable for wallpaper should have a JPG version too
Zaush
Definitely seems counter-intuitive to force this on authors
Zaush
Yes, and I don't so much mind the file size apart from the fact you can't even set windows wallpaper using the source file. This seems like a fairly common use for pics.
GreenDreamer
Honestly, as long as there’s an attachment link where I can download, it’s fine by me. 😊
Trevor Delgado
I was wondering why most patreons I support use huge pngs instead of jpgs so I have to convert them myself to save my disk space. I understand why patreon compresses images, they're trying to save space on the server, but they're shooting themselves in the foot since a lot of people use larger pngs to compensate for their compression.
Gryffin DarkBreed
As someone who has a lot of FLAC+Cue music, the idea of having a "source" quality piece that I use to create smaller versions for application specific situations isn't that unfamiliar
Zaush
I think the biggest issue is that windows just takes a shit when you try to apply a 5k 20MB png as a wallpaper.. and I don't think it's reasonable to expect patrons to do the file conversion themselves, just to set a wallpaper.
Never been an issue for me, but I appreciate the effort to streamline the process for other people :)
