R.L. Dane   🍵6d ago

Nice! Another great update for #GmapsWV!

#LossyPNG

Show threadAnselm Schüler6d ago
@rl_dane lossy PNG?
Show threadR.L. Dane   🍵

@anselmschueler

I love it when people ask. XD

I am:

  • Deeply nostalgic about the 16-bit era of computing and its graphic limitations
  • Deeply concerned that I use as little of my instance admin's (admittedly ample) data storage as possible

    • So, I almost never post videos, and when I post pictures, I either post as very compressed #WebP (not my favorite image format, but it's the best format for low-fidelity/high-compression images that #GoToSocial supports), or "lossy"-compressed PNGs.

    I have a utility on my phone (Image Toolbox) that can reduce PNG files by reducing the number of colors, but it's not great at picking the colors.

    When I have the time and presence of mind to do so, I will take the PNG into GIMP and either use its conversion function to reduce the number of colors (to something like 32 or maybe 64, possibly as low as 4 or 8), or (like in the above case) I'll actually hand-select the important colors in the image and tell GIMP to reduce the image to just those colors.

    In this case, the original screenshot PNG was 83KiB, which I managed to bring down to 16KiB through the manual color reduction process (down to just 6 colors).

    If you peruse the #LossyPNG hashtag, there are plenty of examples. Some are obviously reduced (and are reminiscent of graphics on 16 bit machines like the #Amiga or #AtariST), but some look quite good for how severely reduced they were.

    Image Toolbox | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

    A powerful image editing app that allows you to crop, filter, convert, resize, c

    Apr 14 at 8:37pmWeb
    Show threadChrono6d ago
    @rl_dane @anselmschueler but why save it in png format at that point? Hmm
    Show threadR.L. Dane   🍵6d ago

    @joel @anselmschueler

    Part of the reason I started off doing it is that as long as the image wasn't too large, it wouldn't get recompressed by Mastodon. Mastodon would often take my hand-tweaked jpegs and recompress them, making them much larger.

    Using PNGs gave me more control over how the data would be saved. It also allowed me to post by copying and pasting, whereas if you copy a JPEG and paste it into Mastodon, it gets posted as a large PNG file because it's from the clipboard.

    Some of these things don't apply anymore because I'm no longer technically on Mastodon.

    Still, it's still an aesthetic choice, and and tickles my brains pleasantly.

    I use it for photographs a lot less these days, but it's still perfect for screenshots.