Gif on top of Jpg

[rhedin]

Hello all.

I have a beautiful jpg of a nature scene I want to put a few words over. I have the words all 3-D, with a light source to one side, and so forth. When I add the words and save the jpg, the quality of the words portion declines considerably. If I save the jpg such that the words look nice, the file is huge.

Have other people encountered this? Is there some way to save the little portion that has the words at high quality, and save the rest at "regular" quality?

Regards,

Rick

[Bobm03]

When adding text to an image, make sure that the Anti-Aliasing box is ticked in the Text tool drop down panel.

In this demo image, the text is 3d Chisel, with shadow. The size is 194.


Save the image normally.

[rhedin]

I see some stuff on the jpeg saving options dialog about masking. I sort of have the impression I can mask one part, save it at one quality, and mask the rest and save it at a different quality.

What is that masking option for?

Regards,

Rick

[Bobm03]

I see some stuff on the jpeg saving options dialog about masking. I sort of have the impression I can mask one part, save it at one quality, and mask the rest and save it at a different quality.

What is that masking option for?

Regards,

Rick

When text is placed onto an image, it becomes an "object" which must be merged with the base image in order to be saved with it. The resulting image can be saved at only one "quality" level.

To learn more about masking, go to the Help drop down menu, click on "PhotoImpact Help," check the Index tab and type in "JPEG." Click on "JPEG Image Optimizer dialogue box - JPEG Options" and the topic immediately following, "JPEG....-Mask Options."

[rhedin]

Bob, thanks for the help.

I found some software that can function as a "post-processor" for PhotoImpact. It can compress one region of the jpeg at 95, and the rest at 90, for example. So you can count the freckles on Uncle Chester's face, but you can't count the sequins on Aunt Matilda's dress. It is at http://www.xat.com/io/image_optimizer.shtml. They offer a free 30-day download.

But after much experimenting, I think I can get acceptable results by just turning smoothing (sub-sampling) off when I save the file in PhotoImpact. It isn't perfect, but then again jpeg isn't supposed to be perfect.

Regards,

Rick