Image Compressor 5 - User Guide and FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions - Image Compressor 5

1. What type of image files can be compressed by Image Compressor?
   Image Compressor 5 can compress JPEG files to a smaller JPEG files. The JPEG files can be from any source. Digital camera, cellphone, scanner, or even from image created by other softwares. As long as it's a standard JPEG file, Image Compressor will be able to compress it.
   
   
2. Will my photo quality ruined if i recompress it using Image Compressor?
   JPEG is a lossy compression. All software compressing photo to JPEG format will be lossy. That's where Image Compressor takes part. Image Compressor unlike any other software, will make sure that your image still looks good, automatically. If Image Compressor finds that your image can't be recompressed, it will use the original one. You can be sure the resulting image will still looks good even after the file has been compressed up to 90% of the original filesize.
   
   
3. So, Image Compressor compress JPEG file to smaller JPEG file. Why not compressing it to ZIP or such?
   First, by compressing it to the same JPEG format, the resulting compressed file can be directly viewed by any devices supporting standard JPEG file. That means, the resulting file can directly replace the original one. You can put the recompressed JPEG to your website, photo album, digital photo frame, cellphone, PDA, iPod. Any software and gadgets supporting standard JPEG file! You definetly can't upload zip to replace your photo in a website, can you? Second, ZIP compression may not perform as well as Image Compressor. Try it :)
   
   
4. How can i improve Image Compressor performance?
   Image Compressor is CPU and memory intensive application. It scans and examine every pixel in your image file. We suggest upgrading your CPU and RAM as much as you can. All other softwares will benefit from this upgrade as well. So, why not?
   
   
5. I'm a scientist. How good is the JPEG image recompressed by Image Compressor comparing with the original JPEG?
   It's very good indeed. One way to compare differences between two images is by using PSNR. Comparing the original JPEG with the recompressed JPEG will give PSNR above typical value. Our test images shows that Image Compressor can recompress JPEG files at PSNR rate betweeen 40-50db.
   
   
6. I have a cellphone, digital photo frame and iPod. What's the best image dimension to use in Image Compressor's preset?
   Most device supports a TV resolution. That's a maximum of 640x480. Create your own preset in Image Compressor, and set the resize function to maximum width: 640 and maximum height: 480. Use that preset to compress photos before transfering them to your gadgets. For cellphone users, usually the optimum image dimension is 320x240. You may want to create another preset to do so.
   
   
7. How can i transfer compressed photos from Image Compressor to iPod?
   First, make sure your iPod supports JPEG photo, such as iPod nano and video. Use iTunes to copy those compressed images to your iPod.
   
   
8. How can i scan image and directly compress them?
   After you install your scanner's Twain driver, clcik File -> Acquire Device. Select your scanner from it, select destination folder, select the preset you want to use, and click "Acquire Image".
   
   
9. Ok, my sample image looks good after recompression. How can i do batch process? Will all image looks good as well?
   To do batch process simply select more than one file from the file list. You can use Shift and Ctrl for multiple selections. Yes, definetly. All images will look good. Even if you're using the same preset, Image Compressor will still analyze each file individually to make sure quality does not degrade too much.