Save pic with Photoshop 5.5megas, with paint 2.2megas, why?

[Kommando5]

Hello. I'm far from an expert like some users here are so my question is probably dumb to you.

I save a picture in Photoshop and it's size ends up being 5.5 megas. I take the same picture, then I open it in Windows Paint program and I do nothing to the picture except save it (ctrl+s). I close it and the end result is 2.2 mega picture in storage size. The picture looks exactly the same, zoomed in to it's resolution which happens to be 5184x3456.

I have this problem very often and I often have to save pictures with Paint at the end after doing the major editing with Photoshop. Does it have something to do with wrong color profiles or saving  the picture in too high quality? 

The default save setting of Windows Paint seems to be good setting for me and I'd like to copy this setting some how and use it or something similar in Photoshop so I don't ever have to open Paint. How do I do this?

[JJMack · Accepted solution]

Kommando5  wrote

Hello. I'm far from an expert like some users here are so my question is probably dumb to you.

I save a picture in Photoshop and it's size ends up being 5.5 megas. I take the same picture, then I open it in Windows Paint program and I do nothing to the picture except save it (ctrl+s). I close it and the end result is 2.2 mega picture in storage size. The picture looks exactly the same, zoomed in to it's resolution which happens to be 5184x3456.

I have this problem very often and I often have to save pictures with Paint at the end after doing the major editing with Photoshop. Does it have something to do with wrong color profiles or saving  the picture in too high quality? 

The default save setting of Windows Paint seems to be good setting for me and I'd like to copy this setting some how and use it or something similar in Photoshop so I don't ever have to open Paint. How do I do this?

The image may or may not be exactly the same. To your eyes they may look the same.  You flailed to mention what file format the image files are and what compression is being used in each file.   If they are jpeg images they may look the same but they will not actually be the same.  The will have different image quality  for the jpeg file size to be that much smaller a different quality setting must have be use  saving the files.   The lower image quality setting will save smaller files.  Decoded both files the RGB Image will be the same size 5184x3456 However the pixels will not be the same but your eyes may not see the difference even when viewed at zoom 100% actual pixels.   How are you viewing both image to compare them? Side by side actual pixels?

[Kommando5]

Yes, sorry about that. The image I was talking about is indeed a .JPG image.

I didn't view them side by side and I used Windows Photo Viewer app when comparing them and then used keyboard's arrow keys to go back and forth. I tried a different method and you are right, when I put them together in same image with Photoshop and other one of them as layer and then do layer visible on/off, zoomed in at 1900% I do see a difference.

The compression is something that I don't know much about. Now googling about it, this may be be what I need to look into. What is shown here sounds like what I need to do:

Photoshop Elements Help | Compression

What I'm trying to do is to make the image to look good for human eye and at the same time make the image smaller in storage size (megabits) if it's gigantic in size. For example, reducing a 10 mega picture to 3 megas. I want to do that if I don't detect a big difference with my eyes and I still expect the picture to look the same when zooming it a little bit. Not to the extent of 1900% zoom but as long as 200% or 300% zooming still makes the image look the same. I would probably cut the rest of the zooming options/detail away. So I guess this comes down to the compression settings you mentioned.

Windows Paint seems to magically have the right default save setting that works for me most of the time. I wonder what this setting is so I can emulate it in Photoshop thus I can skip using Windows Paint program.

[D Fosse]

Jpeg is not a working or storage format. It permanently destroys and throws out data that you cannot ever get back - and that happens all over with every new resave.

Jpeg is a final delivery format whenever you need to save bandwidth for online delivery  Save out once to jpeg and don't work on it again.

[JJMack]

Remember to alwaye keep the Image file that your came produced.  Think of them as you Digital master file.  Work on copies of these you do not want to destroy or discard the pixel captured for your images.

[Kommando5]

I understand that about the master file but I didn't explain it well that my goal is indeed to make the image final and not work on it again, so I'm not too worried that I loose some of it's high detail data, as long as I maintain some zoom options and cut out the unnecessary detail that I don't need or use in the final image.

I appreciate the help D Fosse and JJMack especially. Thanks! It was helpful. I don't want to bother you any longer .