"Save for web" as "legacy" in Photoshop CC (2015)?

I know, it sucks. this is what i've found:

As of the 2015 release of Photoshop CC, the File > Save For Web option has been moved to File > Export > Save For Web (Legacy) alongside newer export options.

To learn about these new export options, see Export artboards, layers, and more.

and this is the link that it will take you:

Photoshop Help | Export artboards, layers, and more

it is related to the new artboards option that they have.

Fortunately Alt+Shift+Control+S still works (in Windows) and brings up the old dialog.  I wonder if the old way and the new way produce the same results.  I didn't test that.

John

There phasing it out; export assets will replace it.  Slices were a pain in the butt anyhow.

I'm extremely disappointed with this. I'm a web designer and this is one of the commands I use more often than any other.

And I'm sure I'm not the only one out there feeling a little shell shocked.

What are Adobe on?

I'm not continuing to pay £47 a month for updates which invariably:

- Brings me features I just don't need (Photoshop has been fine for a very long time)

- Removes critical tools I use ('Save for Web' in PS and 'Design View' in DW)

File > Export > Export as... is not a suitable substitute/replacement.

The window can't be resized and it's not comparable in features.

So angry.

Josh - Export Assets, not Export As, is the replacement.

Thanks StrongBeaver.

But where is this command? I can't find it.

And does it provide a resizeable window as with 'Save for Web'. I can't judge the correct balance of quality for large web images when I can't see the entire optimised image at 100%.

For example, a Twitter header image would ideally be exported at 1500px x 500px. I can't view the whole image at 100% zoom in the Export as... box.

I found this: Generating Responsive Image Assets with Photoshop CC 2014

But I can't find 'Export Assets' on the File menu? Why can't I see it?

This is terrible development. The legacy version is fast and easy to use - easy to view an image in multiple file types to tweak file and image size. The backbone for web content people.

I sincerely hope they haven't lost their minds on this. They've added more steps and hindered the workflow in an astonishing way. "legacy" means they plan to dump it. I don't get it.

StrongBeaver wrote:

 

Josh - Export Assets, not Export As, is the replacement.

Export Assets was dropped from CC15, as they determined nobody was using it enough to justify its continued inclusion.

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of this, since upgrading to CC-2015.

It has been replaced with Export As, once again sorry

I was using Export Assets, I was quite happy with it, but I don't count in the grand scheme of things Anyhow it's now Export As, as I see they simply blended the previous Export As and Export Assets together to avoid confusion.

RETARD ALERT!

The one who made the decision to remove the Save for Web option has obviously no clue about the every day users' needs.  I'm pretty sure there's a growing number of frustrated web professionals out there desperately looking for the solution on Google and cursing the day when they downloaded the 2015 update.

Legacy, are you kidding me?  What's coming next?  No image resizing option?  No eyedropper tool?

Adobe, you seriously need to get your act together.  Listening to your users would be a good start.

See also Photoshop: What happened to Save for Web in Photoshop CC 2015?

It would be wonderful to see a positive, informed and respectful response from Adobe about this. The conversations always seem a little one-way.

Let's hope Adobe see sense. In the meantime I'm wondering whether I should stop updating CC every time updates become available. The past three CC updates have caused me nothing but problems and brought no new features that have benefited me. I sometimes wish I'd bought CS6 outright and sat on it (until something better comes out by another software developer). At this rate, users must be begging to look at alternative software solutions for their needs.

I agree this was extremely disappointing. The "Save As" command is not a suitable replacement as it doesn't log you on to the folder you are saving to like "Save for Web" does. I save several hundred photos a day and "Save for Web" will save to the same folder until changed. "Save As" brings up the same folder that contains the original image and you have to go hunting for the folder you want to save to. I hope Adobe listens to the complaints about removing "Save for Web" and restores it to its original status on the file menu. The people that make changes like this obviously never have to use the program in any kind of meaningful workflow.

w8caken wrote:

 

"Save As" brings up the same folder that contains the original image and you have to go hunting for the folder you want to save to.

Just a heads-up... you can change that behavior in the preferences by un-checking Save As to Original Folder.

Thanks, I was not aware of that. A partial help but none of the features of "Save for Web" are available in that option. Hopefully, they will re-think removing it in the next update.

Somebody actually got paid to make the decision to remove "Save For Web"?  This is the number one function I use all-day-long as a website manager.

Thanks Adobe.

I was about to bash the decision for moving Save for Web (SFW) and replacing with Export As .  However I have spent some time looking at the optimization impact of Export As.  It looks like you get up to a 60% reduction in file size.  That is a huge gain.  You may want to take a moment and review my article to appreciate this new feature.  It maybe NOT BE the best solution for those who need to configure SFW with metada or embed color profile sRGB...but the savings are real and the quality remains the same.  I am running the same image in my full screen slider processed with SFW photoshop 2014 vs Export as Photoshop CC 2015 and the Slides look identical, but 'export as' has a 200KB reduction!  All the best and I hope this helps with your transition over to 2015 CC

http://fritzimages.com/blog/2015/photoshop-cc-2015-export-as-jpeg/26839/ 

You're drawing a false comparison because you are saving at different JPEG quality levels, and reduced quality levels will be smaller.

Your Export As example image is missing a lot of edge detail/sharpness, indicating that it was saved at a lower quality level.

Hi Chris,

thanks for your response.  I am still trying to understand where my analysis breaks down from your point of view.

My Master Image has been prepared before Save as or Export as . The Image is resized down to 1896 @ 72dp , Color mode 8 bit, and converted to sRGB. Then in SFW, I set Jpeg quality to 60%, I do the exact same thing for Export as Jpeg, (set Jpeg quality to 60%) .  I have upload Image and don't see a shifting quality. I am using Cinema HD Display 2560X1600.  Is the Export as Jpeg quality slider calibrated like the SFW quality slider ?

thanks for your help

Fritz, i've done a little testing this morning and yes, the scales are quite different.

60% in Save for Web is not equal to 60% in Export As.

Here are examples at 50% quality:

Save For Web:

Export As:

It appears that Export As has nearly 2x the compression as SFW at the same quality level.

Was there a beta team testing this feature or did you guys just shove it in there at the last minute?

Those are nowhere near the same quality level, the Export As example has more severe artifacts and is missing more detail.

I'd say you compared about 70% quality to around 30% quality - which will result in smaller files by throwing away image detail.

Exactly, Chris. The issue i'm seeing is that they were both set to 50% quality...

Hi Chris & Eartho,

thanks for your comments and analysis.  I went back into PS and set magnification for 200 then 300 on the two separate images and the artifacts are more pronounced in Export as.  I'll work some more on optimizing export as quality slider now that I understand that its relationship is different  than SFW quality slider.  Well done, thank you....

i've just redone the test to verify that i did it right the first time.

here's the base file with no compression:

with SFW at 50% quality:

Export As with 50%:

eartho,

Nicely done...it is clear that the quality amount sliders between Export As and SFE will yield different results at the same percentage.  Good to know...thanks

This just out by Adobe:

Save for Web in Photoshop CC 2015

And good riddance too, I'd say. The old SFW function was completely unusable for proper PNG optimization. Nor was there any individual control for chroma subsampling when exporting jpg images. No webP support either!

Trouble is, the current 2015 version does not offer a functional export assets option either, I believe?

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/extract-assets-feature-is-a-disaster

I don't really get it! How did you remove the feature to export assets in Photoshop 2015??? It wasn't perfect but it was so useful!

So what are web devs and designers supposed to do in the meantime? The Photoshop dev team removes one widely used feature, and no alternative is offered? Naming layers with generator is not exactly user friendly. Right-mouse clicking layers to save files is too limited.

I was under the impression that the CC digital serfdom model would publish new versions when and if they were production ready - obviously this is not the case, and Adobe is back to its "Big Reveal" model, no matter whether features are finished or not.

How disappointing indeed.

So why wasn't all this spiffy new image export enhancement simply done within the existing framework of SFW?

It would have been intuitive and allowed the developers to play all they wanted with improvements.

Other types of exports are simply that. Leave the web export functions separate.

I agree - the SFW has basically remained the same since Photoshop 5.5 first introduced it, and it could have seen so many improvements in the last 15 years. Of course, it never happened, for some reason or other.

I can confirm this does work.

i am in agreement with a lot of the users above who were completely let down by this news. SFW is an integral part of our workflow and with this Export As feature replacing SFW, they have just dragged that workflow into the street and brutally killed it.

i want to like it. i want to think of it as an improvement over the old method; a new tool that will boost productivity, even if there is a learning curve...i don't mind that. but right now, it has done nothing but have me 'seeing red'.

i gave it a real-world test, exporting a layer group that made up a header banner. in our workflow, we create the designs, then draw the slices around them. so, previous export using SFW was accomplished quickly and flawlessly by defining the area of the asset with a slice. a split-second shortcut key combo later, i'm selecting a custom export profile from a pulldown menu and hitting "save." done.

using Export As, i right click on that layer group to export. ok, not bad, i can handle that. but then i get a non-resizable dialog with extremely minimalistic settings. it defaults to PNG, so i select JPG. no biggie, but also no presets to choose from. so i then have to set the quality manually—another step—to 70%. because i can't make out the detail of my image (it's zoomed out to 50%) i have to zoom in to 100%—another step again— and then drag my image over in the pane to see the left edge—yet another step—because i thought i saw something that wasn't quite right.

and at 100%, it's confirmed...the image bounds are not the same as my slice bounds. i glance over at the canvas size settings and they're displaying the correct size. why? it is obviously NOT the correct size, or my dotted border wouldn't be flush with the edge of the image...there should be white space.

i go ahead and finish the export anyway, crossing my fingers...but to no avail: the resulting image was too small, dimension-wise.

i get why this is happening, this image-boundaries disparity. but the fix? i now have to create a layer the exact dimensions and position of my desired final image...you know, like i easily did with my slice. this layer has to be duplicated and stuck into each of my 10 layer groups (for each different header). also, setting this layer's fill or opacity to 0% has no effect on influencing the dimensions of the image to be exported...it just makes it like the layer doesn't even exist. luckily, i can set it to white because it's going to be on a white page, but what if i needed it to be a transparent PNG in case this asset is used elsewhere on the site and may end up on top of a colored background? guess what...you're out of luck.

yes, i can 'shape' the dimensions of the image by using the canvas dimensions setting, but this adds (or subtracts) white space equally from each edge...keeping the image centered, which doesn't work if your resulting image is supposed to be intentionally off-center.

and that is that. adjust canvas with no way to adjust the design's X/Y position within that canvas. done.

the thing with slices is that they 'force' the boundaries of the export area—regardless of the actual layer or layer group bounds. pretty handy, i think.

what i find even more alarming than a simple, effective process being completely derailed, is this quality difference at the same settings that people are noticing. this feature should have been labeled "preview" as it was nowhere NEAR being ready for release to the masses.

i understand that all of this can supposedly be used in conjunction with artboards, but i gotta tell ya...i'm not holding out any hope for that solution, either.

i am open to hearing others' thoughts on how to solve this, though.

Excellent responses all. I am bitterly dissapointed that Adobe has made such a dramatic change with no immediately obvious equivalent (or God forbid an enhanced equivalent). To say that this is negatively affecting my workflow is an understatement.

Of course the Photoshop dev team is aware of these issues. They just did not have enough time to finish the features for CC2015's release date (which was probably enforced on them from higher up the command chain).

Next version things will have improved. Things are always tough during times of transition.

Do not read anything absolute into what I wrote: from what I can tell Photoshop's web export options are (finally) being updated into the 21st century, which is a good thing. Trouble is, with growth come growing pains.

I expect the next version to see improvements in the current (granted unfortunate) situation.

SFW was always terrible for PNG export, for example. So it is good to see these changes, however inconvenient they are at the moment.

I personally never liked save for web, and adapted the export assets feature from 2014 instantly.  I would procrastinate because I had to use save for web not because it was difficult, it was the setup process that was a monkey wrench.

Yes I know. They brought "Artboards" to photoshop. Now when i resize the canvas, what I've worked on disappears until it shrink the screen to find where in heck it has moved. A lot in the CC 2015 programs seem like downgrades and losing features we use a lot.

Adobe would do much better if they listened to users rather than shelving features that are used in favor of things we don't need. Premiere Pro CC 2015 is a clear example of ruining what worked in CC 2014.

I'm rolling back to a photoshop that works like i want it and not the way adobe wants it. We shouldn't have to pay $60 per month for programs with features we don't want.

Chris,

Very much a beginner, thus likely stupid question.  That said, if I save an image as a JPEG and use Save for Web and quality is 100% and if I save the same image as a JPEG and use Export As and set the quality at 100%; which JPEG would, for lack of a more appropriate phrase, look the better of the two?

The JPEG would be used in a website slider but size or workflow would not be issues in my scenario since I'm simply trying to assess this subject area.  In the past I used SFW; however, some discussion and opinions is to now use Export As.

Thanks in advance.