How to I get my bitmap images to look good?!

[Sintwar]

I have tried several methods of making bitmap images in flash look good after compiled. The only problem is, they look all fuzzy. No matter how high the quality of jpeg compression is when I publish it. I have tried tracing bitmaps at a pixel ratio and it not only takes forever to trace, but makes the file huge. I have seen several flash sites with very clear bitmap images, and wonder how they are doing it. I have zoomed in as close as I could and the images are pixelated and not fuzzy like mine.. A good example is http://www.nettmedia.com/

The photo is flawless. How do they do this?!

Thanks for any info..

[rich]

When you use jpeg images in Flash it is generally best to set the movie to a fixed size, then Flash doesn't have to scale the jpeg which can cause fuzziness, pixelation etc. If you do need to scale a jpeg greater than its original size then it should be saved with less compression to maintain more information and hence look better when larger. It's worth remembering that if you scale a movie, say to full browser size then viewers with high screen resolution settings (and big monitors) will see a much larger version of the jpeg which may look pretty bad if there isn’t sufficient detail in the jpeg.

I prefer using an image compression program out side of Flash then importing the jpeg into Flash and telling Flash to use the image’s default compression. Doing it this way gives you more control over the compression settings (Flash just has a “quality” setting) and better previewing of the compression settings.

Let me know if you need more,

Rich.

[Edited by rich on 08-25-2000 at 05:50 PM]

[Sintwar]

unfortunately I already know what you are talking about and it doesn't help me a bit. I fully understand that stretching images blurs them, so this is not an issue.

look at this link and you will see what I am talking about. And I am sure you are familliar with this garbage.

http://www.jolt.cc/flashimages/

The top image is crisp the way it should be, but Flash manages to fluff my images up nice and puffy. I can't stand that. if you go to http://www.nettmedia.com/ and zoom all the way in on the image, you will notice that there is no "fuzzyness".

That is the effect I am attempting to create.

Every time I try to trace the bitmap Flash crashes.

I am going insane!

[rich]

It looks like the image has been manipulated in Photoshop (or similar) and a filter or plugin applied to change the image into "square" chunks. The image could then be saved as as a gif or png so no information is lossed (jpeg will probably lose the square effect even though jpeg works on square areas – you never know the plugin may be very smart utilising jpegs “built in” blockiness). I very much doubt the image is built from a traced bitmap.

Let me know if you need more,

Rich.