jpeg saving opptions

From the photoshop help manual:

"

In the JPEG Options dialog box, select the options you want, and click OK.

Matte

Offers matte color choices to simulate the appearance of background transparency in images that contain transparency.

Image Options

Specifies the image quality. Choose an option from the Quality menu, drag the Quality pop-up slider, or enter a value between 0 and 12 in the Quality text box.

Format Options

Specifies the format of your JPEG file. Baseline (“Standard”) uses a format recognized by most web browsers. Baseline Optimized creates a file with optimized color and a slightly smaller file size. Progressive displays a series of increasingly detailed versions of the image (you specify how many) as it downloads. (Not all web browsers support optimized and Progressive JPEG images.)"

In my experience almost all browers people use now support the Baseline Optimized option, which is what i usually use if the jpeg is bound for the web.

Those format options don't really mean much if your not planning to use the jpeg on the web and you'll get even smaller file sizes by using File>Save for Web

The short answer is to use "Baseline (Optimized)" for saving JPG files.

The long answer(s) can be found by searching the Web for "baseline standard", but here's what you need to know about PSE's JPG saving options:

JPG is a "lossy" method of compressing image files -- it throws away image data before doing the compression, so set your "Quality" option to "Maximized". That is the key setting for image quality.

"Baseline (Optimized)" might reduce file size slightly (2% or so), and might be incompatible with viewers using old technology. "Optimized" might produce better colours, but that might not be perceptable.

"Progressive" means that the image is rendered as scan lines (like the old-fashioned TVs used) so that a browser will quickly show a reduced quality image of half the scan lines while it resolves the complete image.

Personally, I never use JPG -- each time a JPG is saved you lose more and more image data because of the lossy compression algorithms. I use PNG, which is lossless.

Ken

The same as that "Progressive" option for JPGs.  Use non-interlaced.

Ken