Currently when I drag and drop images into my freeway document they import
as .jpeg. (They are photoshop files to begin with). Since these files are
primarily line art that I have converted over to photoshop to add and change
color, they look better as .gif files for final output on the web. (Strangly
there is an odd “halo” effect all around the image if I leave them as
.jpegs). Anyway, my question is, is there any way to tell freeway to convert
all my .psd images to .gif instead of .jpeg? At the moment, I have to switch
them all manually and this would save me a step. If I’m missing something
completely, please feel free to point that out as well.
Sometime around 16/3/08 (at 09:11 -0600) Doty Shepard said:
Hi,
Currently when I drag and drop images into my freeway document they import
as .jpeg. (They are photoshop files to begin with).
Freeway makes an assumption about what format to set for images based
on the colour depth of the graphic. If an image is a full 24-bit RGB
image (as virtually all Photoshop images are) then the default output
format will be JPEG. If an image is either a single-channel 8-bit
image (i.e. grayscale), a palette-based, indexed-colour image (256
colours or fewer) or monochrome (1-bit), it wlll automatically set
the output format to be GIF.
This is fine in at least 99.9% of cases… but not 100%. For your
images and desired output format, you will either have to save your
images as greyscale or indexed-colour graphics before you import them or set their output format in Freeway by hand.
I recommend having a go at adjusting the colour depth in Photoshop.
It sounds like your graphics shouldn’t be in 24-bit RGB format
anyway, and that’d save you a fair bit of disk space. But I might be
misunderstanding something…
Thank you for your reply. I think you are probably correct. I’ve never changed anything in photoshop as I’m really not smart enough to figure that out on my own! Maybe you will help make me smarter. If you wouldn’t mind, could you have a look at the images that I’m talking about?
I recommend having a go at adjusting the colour depth in Photoshop.
It sounds like your graphics shouldn’t be in 24-bit RGB format
anyway, and that’d save you a fair bit of disk space. But I might be
misunderstanding something…
Actually, the majority of those images are also taken from photos.
You’re working with images that would be best left in 24-bit colour
in Photoshop and set as your preferred output format in Freeway.
The bottom line is this: you will have to do the work at some point,
whether it is in Photoshop or in Freeway.
Personally, I think you’d be better off keeping things in full-colour
format and converting in the Freeway layout. It leaves you with
options that you might find useful in the future.
Thanks for the advice. In the beginning of this process, I did not have any
line art and created it myself by tracing photographs in photoshop! Now I’m
drawing them in illustrator by hand first, then importing to photoshop to
“paste” onto the various colored shields and whatnot. It is an improvement &
learning process, but I’m always glad to be reassured my workflow is one
that will make sense, both now and in the future. Glad for your reassurance.
Thanks.
Doty
From: Keith Martin email@hidden
Reply-To: “email@hidden” email@hidden
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:18:59 +0000
To: “email@hidden” email@hidden
Subject: Re: Default Graphic Type
Personally, I think you’d be better off keeping things in full-colour
format and converting in the Freeway layout. It leaves you with
options that you might find useful in the future.