I usually design the site comps in PS before I actually start laying it out on FW.
If only I was that proficient with PS beyond spotting out and saving for web, also my copy of PS7 deciding not to work with recent upgrade to SL 
Can I suggest, pencil and paper being a lo tech alternative.
ho um,
s
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On Oct 23, 2010, at 8:09 PM, derekzinger wrote:
Hi Dave
I appreciate the feedback. Interesting idea about using a non-lossy
format. I’ve reimported the top image, this time from a psd file
(1277x851 pixels, by the way, in case that’s important) instead of a
jpg.
That’s always a good idea – JPEG is not a “safe” storage format,
because each time you save it, you create a new generation of image
quality loss – even at 100% “quality”. Data is irretrievably lost
each time you save, due to the way that file format works.
You’re reducing these images to about 14%. That much reduction is a
good recipe for showing off the differences in resizing techniques,
but it is sure to put Freeway in the worst possible light.
Alas, the difference is quality is still noticeable. The updated
page is here: http://homepage.mac.com/flyvebaad/test_sites/image_quality/index.htmlRegarding image formats, I understand that a png is usually
overkill, but on the test page I wanted to eliminate jpg artifacts
as a cause of the lower quality. Thus the pngs.
Looking at your captions on this page, and the questions you raise,
one thing sticks out for me. Anti-aliasing only comes into play when
you have a non-rectangular image shape. (A circle or oval or some
amoeba shape.) Anti-aliasing reduces the stair-stepping inherent in
non-rectangular shapes by injecting a bit of blur into the rigid 72-
pixel checkerboard. By choosing a color that is a mixture of the
background and the foreground colors, this technique fills in the
natural gaps that the pixel grid leaves in any curve or angle. But it
doesn’t come into play inside the bounds of an image – that’s
entirely down to interpolation when you are resizing an image.
Freeway uses a resizing method called bilinear interpolation, while
Photoshop has the (default) option to choose bicubic interpolation. In
cases where you are resizing a significant amount, Photoshop’s far-
more-processor-intensive method will always produce superior results.
Freeway is a layout tool, and is optimized for speed in that task. For
the very best results, use Freeway for what it is good for – changing
the layout until you like the way it looks. Then, after everything is
approved, you can go through with a critical eye and “sweeten” the
images that need it by noting their final dimensions, opening the
originals in Photoshop, resizing them, and exporting in a Web-safe
format. Drop them back into Freeway as pass-through, and you have the
very best possible outcome.
Walter
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If only I was that proficient with PS beyond spotting out and saving for web, also my copy of PS7 deciding not to work with recent upgrade to SL
Here’s a great alternative to PS for less than $60 - http://www.pixelmator.com/
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Yes, I understand that Photoshop will give me the perfect results I’m looking for. My question, however, is why Freeway doesn’t.
I’ve just resized the image in Preview, and it looks just as good as if Photoshop had done it. I’m no expert here, but I imagine Preview uses some OS level feature to achieve this (rather than PS’s engine), and that this feature might be available to FW as well. Why not just tap into this feature of the Mac OS, rather than use the clearly inferior resampling engine it is currently using?
DeltaDave, that image does seem better than the straight FW-generated one. The idea, though, is to stay out of PS if possible and save heaps of time. FW sells itself as an easy way to generate graphics from within the program itself, and it also bills itself as a professional-level web design application. I don’t think it is currently creating professional-level graphics, which is a shame. Considering that Preview creates PS-quality resamplings, shouldn’t the issue be fairly easy to fix?
Cheers
Derek
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Just reread Walt’s post. Is Preview’s resampling engine too processor-intensive for Freeway?
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Hi,
What we do for this site:
http://www.dantucker.co.uk
Is to keep the originals saved as Photoshop .PS files. Then there is no
danger of losing any of the original data or quality, which you would saving
your working fines as .JPEG. Then when we need to make an image for the
site, we use “Save for Web” choose the required quality/size/compression
combination in the output and save as .JPEG, If the image contains added
text in Photoshop we might alternately choose to save as a .GIF.
Then in Freeway we use File | Import [Apple-E] to bring the image into a
Freeway graphic frame. But and here’s this important step, make it a
pass-through image. That way Freeway does not do anything to the image and
just uploads it untouched.
This method is a little inflexible, because you cannot scale or crop it
within Freeway. You also have to make the frame exactly the same dimensions
as the placed graphic
The benefit it works perfectly, for us.
Best wishes Peter
–
================================
Peter Tucker, Oxford UK email@hidden
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I don’t know if this decision has been revisited any time in the past
few years, but I do know that it was experimented with at one point,
with disastrous user interface delay results. That may have been back
in the bad-old GX Graphics days, so I could be remembering something
that doesn’t apply any more. Perhaps one of the official types could
weigh in here?
Walter
On Oct 24, 2010, at 12:53 PM, derekzinger wrote:
Just reread Walt’s post. Is Preview’s resampling engine too
processor-intensive for Freeway?
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Interesting. Any authority figures out there today?
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Thank you everybody for the tips on using Photoshop to create images for my sites. I really appreciate you taking your time to help me out, and am aware of this solution.
However, in this thread I wish to discuss FREEWAY’S graphics output. Please refrain from suggestions to use Photoshop, as it really isn’t relevant to the topic at hand. Thanks!
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Here’s a great alternative to PS
Thanks Helveticus,
I’m also looking at PhotoLine.
Pixlemator, having just had a quick peek seems to have improved somewhat from previous versions, definite contender and it looks friendly. Of course there’s now PS elements 9 to consider though more expensive and has things I don’t need ie. stitching - I already have the latest Autopano pro for that.
Acorn is another I’ve been looking at.
decisions, decisions. 
s
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However, in this thread I wish to discuss FREEWAY’S graphics output. Please refrain from suggestions to use Photoshop, as it really isn’t relevant to the topic at hand. Thanks!
Remember what Walter said in that Freeway is a layout tool while Photoshop is an image editing tool. Freeway by nature allows you to easily build websites but is somewhat restrained on graphic options when it comes to exporting because it simply isn’t expected to do so nor is it supposed to be a powerful image editor. Meaning it would be like loading images into Microsoft Word and expecting to be able to accomplish everything an image editor could do and then blaming Word for not being something it never was meant to be.
Evaluate your web design tool belt and you’ll realize that a hammer like Freeway can’t be your go to tool when it comes to things like sanding or polishing.
(Was working this weekend, hence the “construction” analogy.)
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As a pro photographer as well as doing webby stuff I’m very particular about image quality and in the majority of cases Freeway handles images just fine. Sometimes I will go for a slightly higher file size by setting the quality right up to 100 (sadly doesn’t do 11) to get what I want, in context.
As mentioned I’ve found a difference to the output according to what you throw at Freeway.
So, I wouldn’t just give up on Freeway just yet. As Dan ao. have pointed out Freeway is a web design program - and a dashed good one IMHO.
s
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I have taken a look at this, with the original photo as supplied. Here is a quick and dirty web page with some results.
http://www.actionsworld.com/is/
There are a few things going on here. Firstly, the image resolution is set to 240ppi - so Freeway will be applying some scaling, resulting in an image that appears smaller than it is./ If you right-click on the image and select Pixel Size, you will get the image if it is set to 72ppi. Result: a much bigger image.
It’s well know that Freeway’s scaling is not too hot, so I have also shown the same image as scaled in Photoshop - again at 240ppi and at 72ppi (just for good measure).
For best, tip-top results, I generally scale in Photoshop before final production because I know I will get a far superior image that I would if I let Freeway do the scaling.
I also did some experiments a long while back, comparing Freeway’s JPEG output with that of Photoshop a quick précis of my findings:
1 - Photoshop’s 75% JPEG compression gives a better image than JPEGs at 75% in Freeway. Freeway will give smaller file sizes, but image quality will suffer. If you want to compress to get the same kind of results as you would get in Photoshop, up your compression level to 85% in Freeway. I’ve set this as my default.
2 - JPEG compression will lose detail - it’s the nature of the beast. One thing which is worth doing if you find that loss bothersome is to apply a spot of sharpening to the image. Crank it up so that it is just a spot higher than you are happy with. This should help counteract the JPEG mangling. Experiment with the image you have as this will vary.
Usually, my scaled/sharpened Photoshop files will consist of the final image as a smart object in the Photoshop file so that the image can be rescaled up if needed, and to preserve it from too much interference from sharpening filters if needed.
If I have time, I may add some comparison images to the page linked to above with sharpening on/off.
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Added a page with the same Tarzan image, showing Photoshop and Freeway’s sharpening tools at work with different JPEG compression settings in Freeway.
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Thanks Paul. I see I can gain some extra image quality by setting image resolution to 72ppi in Photoshop. Yay! The sharpening tests are interesting. I think this is a question of personal taste as much as anything else. One curious note here is that, of the samples on display, I prefer the FW-sharpened images over the PS-modified ones!
Dan and Seoras, I’m very happy with Freeway and am by no means giving up on it. Thanks for the encouragement.
So to sum up: for now I’ll need to do my image work, or at least much of it, in Photoshop, essentially because FW uses a fairly poor scaling/resampling engine. I’m going to submit a feature request for this and see if I can get further explanation as to why this is from the kind folks at Softpress. I’ll post their reply here.
Derek
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Just to qualify this statement – Freeway favors speed of conversion
(since it does convert all photos used in the design in real-time
during the publishing process, rather than one at a time) over
ultimate quality of conversion – and this choice will be exposed to
greater or lesser degrees by certain image types or amounts of
conversion.
Walter
On Oct 25, 2010, at 10:21 AM, derekzinger wrote:
essentially because FW uses a fairly poor scaling/resampling engine.
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Sorry, I’m not meaning to trash Freeway here. As I said before, I like Freeway a lot, and I understand there are trade-offs in everything. Here, it seems Softpress has preferred speed, and I imagine most users are fine with the results. But perhaps an option to use higher-quality scaling could be included as a preference, for those of us who are a bit more anal about these things
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Just received a very kind, detailed reply from Keith at Softpress. As Walt posted above, the issue involves the fact that Freeway uses bilinear interpretation to scale images, while Preview uses bicubic interpretation. Changing this apparently involves a considerable amount of work on Softpress’s part. As it seems that the majority of Freeway users are fine with the program’s image scaling as is, he wasn’t able to specify when this feature might be added. There is at least one other request for this feature, and he said they hope to implement it in a future update.
This gets me wondering if image scaling, resampling and output could be covered by an action. Paul and other action writers, is this feasible?
Derek
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