Windows 7: jpg compression quality in windows 7 poorer than xp

16cowboy · 22 Mar 2010

I have noticed that Windows 7 seems to create a lower quality jpg then Windows xp used to.

This happens when I click the email button at the top of the photos folder, select a size, example Medium: 1024 x 768, it will create a new email windows with all the emails attached, ok, nice.

But when you view each photo the jpg compression seems to be alot poorer than xp. The file size is small, but the photos appear noticeably grainer & fuzzier etc because of what seems to me to be compression issue.

Is there any way to fix or modify the settings. I use this feature alot to resize a whole collection of images, but now they are low quality.

Anybody else find a fix or edit for this?
Thanks.

EnemyWithin · 23 Mar 2010

I'm not sure if it's windows or the email client that resizes the picture. But if you need a tool to resize a number of pictures you may try FastStone Image Viewer ; a very nice freebie (5 stars on CNET)

Quote:

FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touches the four edges of the screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more. It supports all major graphic formats (BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA) and popular digital camera RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF and DNG).

Details and download here

whs · 23 Mar 2010

.png gives you better quality than .jpg

FliGi7 · 24 Mar 2010

I've posed this issue on here before with no solutions other than "have you tried this other program x?" when it's not a program-specific problem. There is no answer as to why pictures appear to be poorer quality on Win 7 as compared to XP (comparing the exact same two images), particularly in zooming. When I zoom on my images in Windows 7, it does absolutely no smoothing and provides jagged edges and terrible zoom quality, while XP smooths them.

From my attempts at fixing it, it's not codec issues, it's just Windows 7's way of rendering images with a different rendering engine as compared to XP and I have no clue how to change it.

Good luck in finding the answer on this one, because I sure haven't.

Apotter · 25 Mar 2010

I have the same problem but it's not a problem I think.. I recently bought a new machine and installed Windows 7 after many years of XP.
Quality of Jpeg compression is times worse than in XP although I summarized that the bad quality is only "fake". I do plenty of jpeg compression daily - 50kb thumbnails for my website and everyone reports that the quality hasnt changed on their side. I viewed the same thumbnails on my previous machine - XP - they all look perfectly fine.
I found out my new graphic card, HD resolution and probably Windows 7 visualization give an illusion of a worse quality. Have you changed any hardware too ?

FliGi7 · 25 Mar 2010

Nope, no hardware change at all. I dual boot XP and Windows 7 and have been doing direct comparisons since the early beta stages of Windows 7, with no fix for the quality even in the RTM Pro version I have.

I am running an Asus P5E mobo with GeForce 8600GTS card and have tried all sorts of different, earlier, beta, and Vista drivers to see if it was graphics card related and it's not. Native resolution on everything looks amazing. It's only when you change it at all from native resolution that things start appearing lesser quality. I have no clue as to why.

Arc · 25 Mar 2010

Quote: Originally Posted by 16cowboy

I have noticed that Windows 7 seems to create a lower quality jpg then Windows xp used to.

This happens when I click the email button at the top of the photos folder, select a size, example Medium: 1024 x 768, it will create a new email windows with all the emails attached, ok, nice.

But when you view each photo the jpg compression seems to be alot poorer than xp. The file size is small, but the photos appear noticeably grainer & fuzzier etc because of what seems to me to be compression issue.

Is there any way to fix or modify the settings. I use this feature alot to resize a whole collection of images, but now they are low quality.

Anybody else find a fix or edit for this?
Thanks.

Really ? For the first time I heard it. Know why? I generally use .png format, and the guys Iknow do as well as me

Coz .png gives better quality than .jpg. If the size is a matter , you may compress as .jpg, otherwise shift to .png

546 Inspiron · 28 Mar 2010

It should be as good or better. I would like to know the answer also because I think I noticed it also. I doubt if any video card would change anything because 2-D images aren't affected by cards.

16cowboy · 31 Mar 2010

I am in the same camp as FliGi7..

No hardware changes, not looking for other software recommendations, I already have photoshop, Picassa, etc etc, and dozens more available.

I liked using the email photos method just worked the best & fastest for me, and ts something with the way Windows 7 resizes & compresses compared to XP.

Thanks for your responses, please post more if you find anything.

16cowboy · 28 Apr 2010

Anybody found a update or a solution to this, still very annoying!
XP was better quality after resizing..

Windows 7: jpg compression quality in windows 7 poorer than xp

jpg compression quality in windows 7 poorer than xp problems?