images break up when resized

[cannon303]

Hi not sure if this should go in the actionscript forum but here goes.

I'm creating a cd rom gallery using flash. I've got all the script working well. Flash basically pulls in the images from an external folder and displays them one at a time fading from one to another. The presentation resizes to whatever monitor size the viewer is using and so i've created the jpeg images as big as possible so that they don't break up on larger monitors.

The problem i'm having is that when viewed on a smaller monitor the images look a bit jagged just like if you see a large image on an html page that has been resized smaller than it's real size.

Is there anyway i can make my images smoother, either using actionscript of perhaps something in the export settings when im creating the flash projector or even maybe saving the images as something other than jpegs??

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks

[galak]

The problem with jpgs is that they don't stand very well manipulations... any kind of manipulations... teh only thing I can tell you is that while reducing the % size of a jpg, it will always look crappy except if you use 50, 25 or 12.5% of it's original size. That is 55% --> looks crapy, 50%--> looks just fine... It maight also work with 75% but that I can't guarantee.

Another thing that can affect the jpg quality, is how you created it in the first place :

1° Photoshop save as... ok but large file size
2° Photoshop + Image ready save for web... No go !!! Large file size crapy quality and compression format not always recognised
3° Fireworks save as... no go! if you're going to use a save as... use photoshop
4° Fireworks preview (ctrl + shift + x) your best shot, good quality excellent compression, light files (especially with FW8)

Hope it will help

[cannon303]

Hi thanks for your reply. As it's a cdrom i dont have to worry too much about file size. I used photoshop to save as jpegs mith maximum quality. Taking on your suggestion i've used fireworks image preview and as you are allowed to tweek the smoothing (dont know if you can in photoshop) this has done a better job, it's by no means perfect but it is a bit better.

PS tried exporting as pngs - no change in quality.

Thanks

[galak]

png are just good if you need transparency, otherwise they just add weight...

But the main thing you have to remember of what I said is that if a jpg is not 12.5, 25, 50 or 100 % it WILL look crappy, so what you should do, is not a proportional change, but have specific sizes preset.

For ex :

if Stage == 800*600 jpg = 50 %
if stage == 640*480 jpg = 25 %
etc...

[cannon303]

ok thanks i'll try that. might take some time as i'm joining variables together to point to the jpeg files....