Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

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RSteinwand
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by RSteinwand »

Hi Albert,

I'm impressed by your TinyPng link. I ran 17 png files, optimized as best I could with PngGauntlet and IISpeed and it managed to reduce them by 24k (36%), yet all still had the same number of colors. Then when I ran them thru PNG Gauntlet again, I managed to knock a .92k off of 5 of them again. Obviously there's some benefit from having both tools.

One thing I like about jpegMini and PngGauntlet is they do in-place optimization, overwriting the originals so plenty easy to do... just drag a folder onto the app and click "optimize".
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RSteinwand
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by RSteinwand »

I see there's a TinyPng plugin for Paint.net now. http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?showtopic=31604

Like jpeg, TinyPng is lossy, which is why it gets a good reduction in size. I'd be interested in the next version of TinyPng based on source, which doesn't need an Internet connection to work.
Rick
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Albert Wiersch
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by Albert Wiersch »

RSteinwand wrote:Have you considered mod-pagespeed? I assume you're running Apache.
No, I have not considered that. I am using Apache but I haven't had any performance issues. What I look forward to making the most difference is HTTP/2 when it is no longer experimental in Apache. I'll keep that in mind though. I wasn't aware of it. Thanks.

I think my site is pretty fast... and it got faster when I removed the sharaholic stuff which was causing a lot more "junk" to load as well. In some cases it was loading insecure content and causing the green lock to turn yellow, at least according to a friend of mine who reported the problem with my site (I couldn't reproduce it on my end for some reason). Anyway, all the extra junk it was loading wasn't worth the benefit.
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Albert Wiersch
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by Albert Wiersch »

Glad you like TinyPNG link. I was impressed with it as well. I wouldn't think you'd want to run the same image through lossy optimizers too many times though. :)

I'm not really concerned about squeezing every last byte out of an image. The significant reduction that TinyPNG does is good enough for me.

I also generally like to keep originals because once they are gone and replaced by lossy versions then you have to recreate the originals if you ever need them again for whatever reason.
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RSteinwand
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by RSteinwand »

I also keep originals, often unsized or Paint.net format, which retains layers.

When we got new slider images for our home page (employee pics), I saved the originals and played with various stages of compression and apps that compress jpgs. With jpg and webp AND all the various resolutions (400, 800, 1024, 1280, 1440, 1700px) and 8 slider images, I ended up 96 images to maintain. :?
Rick
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by RSteinwand »

Speaking for jpg performance, I thoroughly enjoyed this read: https://medium.com/@duhroach/reducing-j ... .c5la42cf8
Rick
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by Albert Wiersch »

RSteinwand wrote:Speaking for jpg performance, I thoroughly enjoyed this read: https://medium.com/@duhroach/reducing-j ... .c5la42cf8
Thanks. I thought that was an enjoyable read as well, and it gave me a "mental WOW" when I read the part about the average webpage size now being larger than the original DOOM game. On a related note, I try hard to avoid bringing up certain links on my mobile phone because I know they are just going to be slow-loading, bloated, ad-infested pages that are not worth the time and data usage. Plus they are often irritating, jump around, and don't even scroll properly as junk continues to load while I'm trying to read the actual content. It could be SO MUCH BETTER.

But anyway, this topic is about image compression. I still really like the 'Save for Web' option in Photoshop that lets you visually compare image quality as you make changes to the compression. For PNG images (which I mostly use because I mostly post screenshots), TinyPNG seems to work great. I haven't used WebP but it sounds good. I haven't tried any of those other 'more extreme' methods for compressing images, but any website that tries that better make sure their site is lean. What's the point of saving a few K on images when your site is bloated with megabytes worth of junk? :D
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by mariajohnson »

hi to everyone! From my experience photoshop is the best, but you can use PicMonkey, Canva or Pixlr Editor. All for free
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by DennyG »

I have used Serif's PhotoPlus for many years and through many revisions and have always thought it at least the equal of PS Elements. In 2015 they released a new product called Affinity. Initially available only for Mac, it has recently been made available for Windows and all PhotoPlus development ended. I downloaded Affinity for Windows just a few days ago and have yet to give it much of a run but my first impressions are that it's a worthy PhotoPlus replacement and therefore, IMO, a worthy Elements alternative.

https://affinity.serif.com/
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by RSteinwand »

Another spam magnet!

"I haven't used it yet, but I think it's great!" :?
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by whatsthebigidea »

How about Pixlr editor online? It's built by Autodesk which built AutoCAD.
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ReneK
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Re: Best graphics program? Photoshop Elements alternative?

Post by ReneK »

It's built by Autodesk which built AutoCAD.
That alone is the ultimate show-stopper. I was using EAGLE, which is now owned by them as well. They just have proven as being extremely untrustworthy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U8he-5Bqtw
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