Help: can't get file size small enough for Critique Arena

[Rebecca Jensen]

Oy! I've shrunk my artwork to the required 1200 pixels across, then reduced the resolution down to 60 (ick!), and saved it at the "0, Lowest Quality" setting... and

1. the file size is still 768kb, over the 500kb requirement!
2. the image looks terrible. Besides the fuzzy lines, there's all sorts of "noise" creating a pixelated halo around everything. I don't think folks submit work this grainy to the Arena.

I can get it to look nice at about 1MB (1000kb), but getting down to 500 is proving difficult!

I can't imagine going below 60 for resolution and I have to keep the size at 1200px wide... so I'm stumped! Any ideas out there? Thanks so much!

[Georgios Christopoulos]

@Rebecca-Jensen did you flatten the image by merging the layers before saving?

[AngelinaKizz]

@Rebecca-Jensen copy the canvas, and paste it into a new canvas. This canvas is carrying memory of all of your strokes.

[Rebecca Jensen]

@Georgios-Christopoulos Good question! Yes, I tried merging the layers first before saving, but it didn't seem to change the result.

@AngelinaKizz I hadn't heard of this! However, it looks like I only saved 12kb, going from 768kb to 756kb, which is unfortunately not enough.

This is so strange! It doesn't LOOK like a super complex artwork to me.

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Rebecca-Jensen what fily type did you save it as? JPEG? PNG?

[kayleenartlover]

Maybe check to see if your dpi is 300 or smaller

[Rebecca Jensen]

@Nyrryl-Cadiz I saved it as a JPEG. I was surprised to see that PNG was not an option to Save As in Photoshop (unless it's somewhere special that I don't know about).

@kayleenartlover I tried many different DPI, even as small as 60dpi! Much smaller and I'll have "pixel art", haha.

[kayleenartlover]

@Rebecca-Jensen that is so strange. Maybe, just take a screenshot of it and see if that makes any difference? ‍️

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Rebecca-Jensen I see. Well, what are its dimensions?

[Rebecca Jensen]

@Nyrryl-Cadiz I just made it shorter, so now it's 1200 x 888px. Saved at 300dpi and "medium" quality, it's 929kb, and at 150dpi and the "lowest" quality, I can get it to 760kb, but at significant loss in quality.

I went to the upload page just now to see if I would still be able to upload it at a larger file size, and there's another line that says "You may only submit one file with maximum 1 MB in size" !

Oi. I am going to go ahead and submit the 929kb version, as I really tried to get it smaller!

Thanks all for your ideas.

[ArtMelC]

@Rebecca-Jensen go to the advanced option before exporting to jpeg and uncheck everything that says "Embed" this and that. Sorry I can't name the specific menu in PS but you will probably know what I am talking about once you go into the export function.

Before removing embedded information, my image was stuck at 700+ mb even at thr lowest quality. After removing the embedded information, it is 400+mb at High quality.

[Kim Rosenlof]

@Rebecca-Jensen If you haven't found a solution you can do the following in Photoshop:
File>Export>Save for Web> Image size - change the W or H to 1200 >Save?
You can keep it as a jpeg or png at the top. I would save it in a JPEG format if it is a raster image like a picture. This has always worked for me for online images.

[Meekipink]

Try running your jpg through a free online image compressor/optimizer. I always compress before uploading to social media (or anywhere online, really), since it drastically reduces the size and helps prevent image theft.

I usually use this one, but it doesn't seem to be working right now. There are plenty of others though.