Oh, I am full of questions tonight I just made a background and would like to save it in case I want to use it again. I flattened the image and am saving it as a jpeg but not sure what quality to save at. When I try to save it at level 12, it is 16 MB. I don't want to compromise quality, but I don't want it this huge! LOL. All the backgrounds I have in kits seem to be about 2-5 MB or so. What am I doing wrong??

I'm using PSCS and my image is 12x12, 3600 pixels wide, 300 dpi.

Thanks again!

Stacy

You can keep your .psd in case you want to edit later, and do a File Save As .jpg to get the smaller compressed file for use in your kit.

HTH,

Elizabeth

Thanks -- I am saving it as a jpeg and it is still huge if I save at full quality. I'm wondering if I need to do that or if I can save at a lower level.

I save it at 12x12 at 300 dpi and a level 10 .

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When you are using a lot of brush strokes and/or a lot of erasing, burning and dodging strokes, I guess there is nothing you can do to reduce the size. I have experienced this in the past too :P

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yes, the more intricate the colors, the larger the file will be. A solid color background, even a large one, will be a tiny file. Something with a ton of subtle color transitions will be larger
another option on such images is to use 200 dpi instead. Print quality will still be excellent, and the file size will thank you!

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again on the resizing you do a SAVE AS and reduce the slider. You will see the actual size being rendered at the bottom if you watch as you move the slider. It may take a second for it to actually show as it renders.

You can save them generally to about a 5 without seeing any degridation or quality loss.

Saving at 300 dpi which is the industry standard will allow you to submit your work to different publications and have them be magazine quality.

You can go as low as a 5?! Wow, that's good to know.

I do 200pdi because when I print I see zero difference, and when I need to submit I just increase to 300 dpi and no publisher has ever noticed any difference on anything. Most want a half size, 6x6, so those work great. But even those who want full-size have never noticed, so if your computer is slow or size is an issue, 200 is a great alternative.

How's it going? Did you get the size manageable? How's it look when printed?

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