JPG Best Quality & Original

That's been a mystery for a long time in iPhoto. The Max quality level is just a shade larger than the original but has the same amount of jpeg compression applied. What the different is anyone's guess. My 3.2 MB original goes up to 3.6 MB but both are compressed the same - 1:3, i.e. same image quality. The High quality size is only 1.3 MB and is compressed 1:10 while the Medium quality is compressed 1:19.

The file size increase with Max may be to additional info in the file that we can't read with iPhoto.

OT

Old Toad, have you tried to export an original, that is already compressed? Than you will notice much larger difference:

For example I tested with a moderately compressed original jpeg (2592 x 1936), imported to iPhoto:

• It shows in iPhoto as 2.5 MB,
• the original file on the disk has a size of 2.3 MB
• exporting as origial produces exactly the file size on the disk, 2.3 MB
• exporting as "Jpeg quality maximum" export file more than twice as large: 5 MB.

Regards

Léonie

Added: Exporting a highly compressed original - same pixelsize as abave, but only 505 KB at best quality will give a filesize of 3.8 MB, nearly eight times the size of the original.

Can you just tell me "How Do I Export My Phoots(Best Quality, High Quality, or Good Quality) from Original?

Simply... You Can't.

Remember iPhoto is about Photos. Not files. What's the difference?

The illustration I use is as follows: In my iTunes Library I have a file called 'Let_it_Be_The_Beatles.mp3'. So what is that, exactly? It's not the song. The Beatles never wrote an mp3. They wrote a tune and lyrics. They recorded it and a copy of that recording is stored in the mp3 file. So the file is just a container for the recording. That container is designed in a specific way attuned to the characteristics and requirements of the data. Hence, mp3.

Similarly, that Jpeg is not your photo, it's a container designed to hold that kind of data. iPhoto is all about the data and not about the container. So, regardless of where you choose to store the file, iPhoto will manage the photo, edit the photo, add metadata to the Photo but never touch the file. If you choose to export - unless you specifically choose to export the original - iPhoto will export the Photo into a new container - a new file containing the photo.

So:

You can export your Original. It's your Original. The file as copied from your camera, no changes. If there were any changes it wouldn't be the original.

or

You can export your Photo (and note that's Photo, not file) into a new file and you can choose the compression rate on that.

So, it's an either/or. Export your Original, unchanged. Or Export to a New File.

Only high end dslrs camera will allow you to set the quality of the shot.

Unless you are going to print the photo at an realy large size the High quality level will be indistinguishable from the Max quality level.