# What does OPTIMIZE image mean?



## BigDaveinNJ (Jun 9, 2000)

Some of my image editors have an open option to save an image OPTIMIZED and I was just wondering if someone could explain briefly what this means.

Thanks in advance 

DAVID


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## slipe (Jun 27, 2000)

I have never had a program offer an optimize when I used Save or Save as. I normally use only Photoshop, Irfanview, EXIF Viewer, Illustrator and occasionally Camedia Pro.

My guess is that you are saving for the web or e-mail and it is optimizing the size and compression for the purpose.

Maybe you could do a search for optimize in the help files to see what specifically the program is doing. Or give us a list of programs offering the option.


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## bassetman (Jun 7, 2001)

I agree with O_and_O you can reduce it to internet standards 72 DPI or keep a larger format, say for printing.


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## LONGHAIR (Jun 11, 2002)

O_and_O is right, the only place I've seen "opitimize" is in an animation program. It is used to reduce the size of the file while keeping the outward appearance the same. Mine is adjustable as far as the "quality/file size" issue goes. If you "over do it" you can see the difference. At the highest quality level most of what happens is a slight reduction of color depth and removal of duplicate frames. If the image is a simple graphic w/o complicated shade/shadows, etc the difference will be minimal. (there isn't much for the program to do to it) If the image is more "photo-realistic" you will notice a greater quality difference.

Here is an example of what happens:
The cup on the left is a photo converted to .gif,which reduces the quality some itself. It contains 255 as it is now. When optimized to the smallest file size (in my program) it only has 31 colors. You can see the jaggedness and even complete color loss/change that occurs when you cut down the number of different colors available. I put the 2 pics together as one image for the demonstration. The first thing you notice is that the pure white background was one of the colors eliminated. 
I probably just went a lot deeper than you wanted .........but oh well, at least you can see the difference now.


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