Compressing GIFs comes down to decreasing the number of colors found in the
GIF. In PSP you can easily see the number of colors by choosing Colors/Count
Colors Used from the menu. A GIF using 200 colors (out of the 256 color
pallet) will be larger than the same GIF using only 100 colors.

(The other factor affecting the size of GIF's is the use of large areas of a
single color. So if you have a large white background, you may want to check
to be sure it is all a single value of white, not many.)

The way to reduce colors in PSP is to 1) first INCREASE the color depth of
the image to 16 million colors, then, 2) DECREASE the color depth to "X"
colors (it's a choice on the menu) and choose a number lower than the
original number of colors. I find that if an original GIF has over a hundred
colors in it, trying 36 colors can result in an image that still looks
reasonably good. If you can get away with 36, try 24. If 36 looks terrible,
try 48. (There is no reason you need to stick to multiples of 12, that's
just my own quirk.)

That said, it is ALWAYS better to make photographs into JPG's, since you'll
get a smaller file size no matter what you do. Turn buttons, logos, "line"
drawings (and anything else that needs a transparent background) into GIF's.

---------------------------------------------------------
Chuck Evans
Web Marketing Manager
Captura Software, Inc.
(425) 424-1155
chucke(at)captura.com
www.captura.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Newton [mailto:whitby(at)idirect.com]

There is a shareware program called Gif Cruncher that works quite well.

----- Original Message -----
From: <Beverager1(at)aol.com>

Optimizing JGEG's was a piece of cake. Now I am trying to do the same with
my GIFs and having some trouble. In PSP6, I went to File/Export Transparent
GIF and turned off the transparent option, because I don't want
transparency.

The GIF looked horrible on the preview screen; the settings automatically
compressed it a too much. I played around with the settings but wasn't able
to decompress it. Any ideas on how to effectively compress a GIF in PSP
would be most appreciated.

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