Okay so I was making this pixel game and I am working really hard on it, the quality for the medals of my older games are bad mainly because I saved as jpeg, and I cannot save it as png or anything like that, I was wondering, how do I make my medals for my pixel game have an hd quality like most professional games I see on newgrounds, do I have to download a program that can save as high quality jpeg files or do I need a better computer? I use a windows xp for flash but my laptop is windows 8 if that's the case.
Unfortunately, JPEG uses a lossy compression, meaning that once you save it as a JPEG and lose the original image, it stays as a crappy image. This is the main reason why you wouldn't want to save images as JPEGs, and the rate of quality deterioration depends on the algorithm being used, and what the image originally looked like. However, the image size savings are very good, and JPEGs work the best on images that don't have sharp contrasts. All I can suggest with JPEGs is to use what the above user suggested, and just see what it turns out looking like.
The alternative is to save the image as a GIF, since that's the other image type that can be used for medal icons. GIFs use lossless compression, meaning the original image can be restored. However, in my experience GIFs tend to sabotage the quality a little bit if there's a large range of colors that need to be displayed. Again, just try and see how the image turns out if you're worried about quality.
fyi, if you repeatedly save a JPEG in a JPEG in a JPEG etc., the image becomes super craptastic!
At 7/14/13 10:47 PM, in6seconds wrote: Okay so I was making this pixel game and I am working really hard on it, the quality for the medals of my older games are bad mainly because I saved as jpeg, and I cannot save it as png or anything like that, I was wondering, how do I make my medals for my pixel game have an hd quality like most professional games I see on newgrounds, do I have to download a program that can save as high quality jpeg files or do I need a better computer? I use a windows xp for flash but my laptop is windows 8 if that's the case.
You need to use PNG format if you want quality sprite images. Download gimp; it takes a bit of getting used to but it contains just about everything required for 2d digital editing.
Also, be sure to use 24-bit instead of 32-bit PNGs for any images you use that don't require a transparency mask.
