Here's something else that was done using the Lighting Filter...
It's ok I guess, but I prefer to do my text effects with the various methods explained in the "Secrets" chapter. I think this looks a bit to insta-filterish... if you know what I mean. Anywho...

What level of compression is best fot the web?... The two most common image formats for the Internet are Gif & Jpg or Jpeg (Jpeg is a Mac format of Jpg). Unfortunately, due to the unwritten law on bandwidth preservation, we all have to do our part to try and 'trim the fat' out of our web graphics in respect for those that will visit and hopefully enjoy our web sites. This sometimes means that we will have to learn to deal with our beautiful graphics and pictures being displayed in a somewhat lesser quality than we would like them to be seen but the public at large. During the time that I have been on the web, about 3yrs or so, and through my own experiences with doing graphics for the web, I have discovered a few guidlines that will help you to create smaller file sized, yet still fairly decent quality graphics for the Internet. In general the guidlines are as follows: (please keep in mind that this is not a comprehensive study on this subject, but rather a basic overview on the topic. There is a lot more that can be learned about this topic than is written here) JPG format: This format is most often used for images or pictures that have either a wide range of gradient color blends with multiple subtle tone changes, or a photographic like quality. When using this format, saving your images or pictures with a medium compression level is more than adequate for most graphics that are going to be used on the web. The only time I might make an exception on this guidline is if my graphic is fairly small (such as a thumbnail). Then I might, depending on the detail in the graphic, save it with a high compression level. ALSO: saving your images as 'progressive' Jpgs can, in some instances, knock off a few more kbs from the file size. Why this is I'm not sure. BUT HEY! Not knowing who invented the wheel hasn't stopped you from enjoying the benefits of it right?! GIF format: In general, the GIF format is used for such things as Text graphics and images that do not have a wide array of subtle gradient tones, such as in a photograph. This does not however mean that you shouldn't use this format for photographs. In the end, that decision will have to be up to you. Using the GIF format can be a little trickier. This format will require that you do a bit of experimentation to get the knack of knowing how many colors to use when saving your pictures in this format. It is not something that can effectively and precisely be put into words. Too little colors (smaller palette) and you can destroy the quality of your images completely. Too many colors (larger palette) and your images will look fine, but the file size can be much too large for putting on a web page. My advice here is for you to open up a photograph into Photoshop and rename & resave it using different size palettes (8 bit / 6 bit / 4 bit / etc.). Then use your image viewer to look at and compare the quality of each version. This kind of experimentation can save you the headache of having to do this by trial & error using the 'Revert' function in Photoshop. After a while, you will become more familiar with what size palette will work best for a particular graphic. ALSO: saving your graphics as 'Interlaced' Gifs, can have a tendancy to increase the graphics file size. Although now-a-days it is becoming more & more 'politically correct' to use the Interlaced format, I myself do not use it much, if at all. But whatever you do... Do not use the Interlaced fomat on images that will become an animated Gif. These two things combined just do not work well together. to the Top

Recovering from Compression Blues... Let's start by looking at a way that can help you to save your images in a compressed format (for the web at least) and still maintain a reasonable quality, comparable to the original image created in Photoshop. I don't know how many of you have noticed this, but when you save a picture in Photoshop as a GIF or JPG, the image tends to loose a few of it's lighter tones, making the saved (and compressed) version darker than the original. I'm not sure if this is normal for Photoshop or just a quirk of it, but either way I'd rather just focus on how to 'work around it' than fret over it. So here's some things I do to help improve the quality of my web graphics when needed: After I've completed my graphic and don't plan on doing anything else to it, I create a New Layer at the topmost level of my layers palette. Then I turn on the eye for all the layers that will be used for my finished picture. Or turn OFF the eye for the layers that don't need to be used in the completed picture. (That would include such layers as back-up layers, experimental layers, etc) Now, while holding down the ALT / OPTION key on my keyboard, I open the palette menu by clicking on the little arrowhead at the top right of the layers palette. From that menu I choose MERGE VISIBLE LAYERS. What this does is create a 'merged' or 'flattened' version of my picture on the new empty layer; but without actually 'flattening' my layers. Now I have a single layer with my completed picture on it. When you get to this point, you might wish to save your document one more time. That will ensure that if anything should happen, you'll already have the new "merged" layer done if you have to Revert. From this point now, you can open the IMAGE menu and choose ADJUST / BRIGHTNESS & CONTRAST. What you will want to do here is add some more brightness to your 'merged' version of your picture. So long as that layer is activated, this procedure will not have any effect on the original elements of your picture that are on all of the other layers. I have found, through experimenting, that in general a picture saved as either GIF or JPG format will tend to lose about 10 to 15% of it's lighter tones. And the more compressed you make it, the darker it will get when saved. Although i must say i believe PS 5.5 has fixed this problem greatly. So to make up for this loss, I will usually start by trying a brightness level of +10 to +15 (I usually don't adjust the contrast setting). When I've finished adding the extra brightness to the merged version of my picture, I will then save a copy of it as the format I want to use, and open it up with my system image viewer. You cannot open and view this newly saved copy of your picture in Photoshop, because Photoshop is where the problem originates from. The picture will be tainted by Photoshop's advanced image rendering capabilities. We want to see what the picture looks like in a bare-bones image viewer, like the kind of small viewers that can be found on most computers today such as "QuickView Plus" or "IrfanView3.2" for windows. I use Irfanview. to the Top

Well that will wrap-up another Session for us folks. I hope this has been informative for you all, and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Onward'n'Upward! theKeeper

-- Quick Jump SESSION LIST -- S1 .Creating a glass dome S2 .Clipping Groups & Texture Painting S3 .A better drop shadow for the Web S4 .Creating 3D objects & art work S5 .Chrome effects S6 .Learning about the Lighting Filter S7 .Exploring the Difference Blend Mode S8 .Creating a Metallic Tiles texture S8b .Part 2 of Session 8 S9 .Gif transparency - no more halos! S10 .Part 2 of Session 9

"The Photoshop Guru's Handbook" ™ and all contents of this site are copyright 96/00 Mark Anthony Larmand - (aka theKeeper) all rights reserved.