Save vs. Save As: Different output file sizes

[Simone Corel UK]

You say that x4 has "a new, different engine than [sic] X3." What does that mean?

Yesterday, you owned a Ford, today you own a Mercedes. You have a new different car.

Until PSPX3, all PSP version had an engine for opening and saving images. Now, PSPX4 has a new, different engine.

Not only that PSPX4 shows CMYK images almost correctly (we had that discussion already, please don't start again one), the new engine saves differently.
I myself took a picture, taken by a professional photograph, and printed that picture in Photshop CS5 and PSPX4 on a Xerox £7.000 printer and showed the results my colleagues. No-one saw a difference.

This is an aspect I appreciate very much, because my images for my website are 30% smaller than the ones saved in Photoshop. Since I discovered that File-> Export saves with 96dpi and 30% less in size, I ignore Photoshop.

[fotojrb]

Yesterday, you owned a Ford, today you own a Mercedes. You have a new different car.

Until PSPX3, all PSP version had an engine for opening and saving images. Now, PSPX4 has a new, different engine.

...the new engine saves differently.

If what you're trying to say is that the behavior in x4 that I have described is as-designed, why didn't you say so? I have never owned a Ford or a Mercedes, so the analogy was no help.

Anyway, if the Save behavior is intended, then x4 has a UI issue. A user coming from previous versions (x2 and earlier, at least) would expect consistent behavior. For example, he or she would expect Lossless actually to be lossless. In fact, even a new user would expect Lossless to the lossless. It should be made clear where compression and encoding apply, and where they don't. (An inelegant solution at best, I think. Just fix it.)

This is an aspect I appreciate very much, because my images for my website are 30% smaller than the ones saved in Photoshop. Since I discovered that File-> Export saves with 96dpi and 30% less in size, I ignore Photoshop.

I hadn't tried File|Export before, so I just tried it now. My file was saved at 72dpi, not 96, and it used whatever compression is set in the dialog. So at a cursory glance I don't see how it differs from Save As. However, File|Save for Office, using the Screen or e-mail option, does save at 96dpi. In my test, the resulting file was about 7.5% the size of the original (5695KB to 425KB).

[Simone Corel UK]

Re: I hadn't tried File|Export before, so I just tried it now. My file was saved at 72dpi, not 96, and it used whatever compression is set in the dialog.

It depends on the image. If you "export" a 300dpi image, then you get 300dpi. I have only 72dpi images with my camera, but I appreciate it to get 96dpi if I want and I save 30% of my web space. Photoshop "Save for web" only saves with 72dpi.
By the way, the PSPX4 "Save" behaviour doesn't happen will all images, as we found out while testing it.

For all who don't want to lose 30% for formal reasons, please use Save as.

I would like to finish this discussion/conversation. Everything has been said.

[fotojrb]

I know we're all tired of this, but I thought I'd pass on the contents of an e-mail I just received from Corel Tech Support in Ottawa:

I received a response from our engineering department in regards to your issue.

“The major root cause is we changed Image decode/encode engine from "ImageGear" to "Ulead FIO" in order to remove license of ImageGear. Different engine will have different behavior for file opening or saving. But one thing we are surely is the saved image quality in X4 is equal even better than X3/X2 even if the image size is smaller. “

So the behavior that you are experiencing with Paintshop Pro X4 is completely normal.

So, as Simone UK said, it is as-designed. Funky UI, but there we are. There's always PSPimage.

[CyberDreamLady100]

Not only that PSPX4 shows CMYK images almost correctly (we had that discussion already, please don't start again one), the new engine saves differently.
I myself took a picture, taken by a professional photograph, and printed that picture in Photshop CS5 and PSPX4 on a Xerox £7.000 printer and showed the results my colleagues. No-one saw a difference.

It would be helpful for those unaware of the discussion thread to which you refer if you would post a link to such.

[hartpaul]

I have seen so many people worry about lost Kb and lost pixels when they save and resave a jpg. In the end that is pointless if there is no difference in the final product.

If you take a 5000 x 3000 pixel image and save it at compression 2 and then at compression 30, you will notice some difference if you look at it at 100% or higher magnification.
If you produce a 6 x 4 inch ( 1800 x 1200 pixel at photoquality 300 dpi) print from both you will probably not be able to tell the difference as most of the pixels are thrown away / compressed heavily anyway - 5000 - 1800 = 3200 pixels discarded.
To tell the difference if any, you really need to look at the print at the maximum photoquality size possible. (16.67 x 10 inches at 300 dpi) .
It seems that people are worried about ghosts of pixels lost.

[LindaSue]

I don't think that the issue is so much that some pixels are lost, when saving a JPG over and over, it's what happens to the remaining pixels that's not good. The more times you resave the same JPG image, the worse the artifacts will get, especially if the image has red in it.

[hartpaul]

So given a jpg of 5000 pixels long side how many times does it have to be saved before the changes become obvious? 2 , 3, 15, 20? Most times I will save an image as a jpg will be about 4 times. In the middle of processing an image it will be saved as a psp file.

I have images from camera saved as jpg Save 1.
Then I rename them, copy them to an archive. Then rotate the first set Save 2.
Then select images to process and eventually save the processed images possibly with resizing - Save 3.
Can anyone prove that that will damage the images noticibly?

As an aside a frient tried to prove to me that repeated saving of a jpg would cause deterioration and showed me an article in a book that definitely showed blocking of sunset sky colours after 29 saves. ( But what was it like after 5 saves , 10 saves?)
I hate accepting peoples statements as gospel and try to test themselves out for myself. It is also available for others to test and see what the limit is, remembering that amount of compression will have a much greater effect than the number of saves in my opinion.

[LindaSue]

I'm sure you're right about images that are that big but I usually work with much smaller images and they're not usually photos. They've typically already been compressed too much by the person who uploaded them to the internet so I have to be careful not to add even more artifacts when I edit and re-save them. Of course I never overwrite the originals.