importing optimized images vs cut & paste from Photoshop/firewoks?

[aam]

Should I just cut & paste bitmap images from Photoshop & Fireworks in Flash or should I optimize them first before importing them into Flash? What's a better way?

[pangolin]

I find that you can get smaller sizes if you export an optimized image and then import it into flash.

Windows cut and paste uses the BMP format (or DIB, I don't remember, but they are about the same) which is full color uncompressed. So you'll be able to optimize from within flash.. but you won't be able to select colors etc like you can from - for example - fireworks.

[Caravaggio]

kinda off topic, but which format for images are better to import into flash, jpg or bmp? Is there a noticable different? seems that you could apply more compression (for better or worse) with jps

[burnedalive]

I usually import an uncompressed or lossless image and then work out the compression at the end finding the best trade off between file size and image quality. I feel that if I start with an already compressed image, my range for tweeking the trade off at the end is more limited.

[CyanBlue]

Another option would be PNG file which generally works fine in Flash/Fireworks combination...