Re: Flash Blowing file size.

[John Croteau]

Dave Smith wrote:

> I havent noticed it before. But when importing several jpg images

> in Flash under one symbol name and then exporting to .swf format,

> the size of the .swf is triple the size of the file where Im importing

> the jpg images form. IOW, the File holding 10 jpg images is 64k. When

> I import these into Flash and export as .swf the .swf file is a whooping

> 164k! What gives. Nothing but the 10 jpg images are in the file on my

> HD and nothing but the 10 jpgs are in the Flash movie before export to

> .swf format. Why the huge increase in file size?

Higher compression in the original jpg than the 50% compression setting

in the Flash export option for the .swf.

 

> Ive also tested with BMP and these files are even larger on export.

The same picture whether imported into Flash as a BMP or a JPEG will

create an identically sized .swf file reguardless of the byte sizes of

their files.


How much a picture is compressed and the byte size of a picture imported

into Flash is irrelevant to Flash. Flash expands all bitmap pictures to

an uncompressed working version. Only on export is the picture

compressed using Flash's jpeg system (or its lossless compression). The

Flash jpg compression scheme is applied to the uncompressed version of

an imported picture and is totally unrelated to the byte size and amount

of compression applied to the picture before importing into Flash. The

file size and amount of jpg compression applied is set on export with

the JPEG Quality. Note 100 is not lossless.


JPEG is a transmission format that is a lossy system. It should not be

used in the creation and editting of a picture because it degrades the

picture and lost detail and information is not recoverable. Ideally,

JPEG compression should be applied only once on the final picture. For

best results lossless versions of formats such as .bmp and .tif should

be used while processing graphics and a lossy compression format such as

jpg should be applied once at the end to reduce file size for

transmission on the Web, for instance. Note, Flash2's jpg compression

may or may not be as good as another program's

jpeg compression but you cannot use their compression scheme in Flash,

you must use the one in Flash. By experimenting with the quality setting

you can see how small (byte size wise) and how much quality you lose at

different JPEG Quality settings.


You should always import the original image cropped to the size you

will be using in Flash if possible. If the format is not an import

option in Flash, then you should convert to a lossless format, a BMP or

PICT file. Do not convert to .jpg. JPEG (.jpg) as this is a lossy format

that

degrades the picture. Reducing the file size of an image before

importing that image into Flash is of no help in reducing the file size

of Flash. And in the case of .jpg files it is counterproductive since it

the original image is changed when converted to .jpg and the size

reduction before importing is irrelavent to Flash, since Flash deals

with

the fully expanded picture before it applies its own JPEG or lossless

compression to a picture.


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John Croteau

croteauerols [dot] com (mailto:croteauerols [dot] com)

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