Thanks, that is interesting - I wonder does that mean that some piece of imaging software I have on my system, but you do not, is either setting a value somewhere, or perhaps being called by Explorer to process the file. I would have thought Windows provided its own jpeg handling algorithms, which would tend to imply there is a default compression value in the registry and mine has been altered by some of the other software on my system. Frustrating!
it must be explorer doing it - no other software is involved.
i'm sure that explorer doesn't have any default compression settings, as it shouldn't ever need to compress at all (except zips and whatnot).
but i don't know why your explorer is doing it, and mine doesn't.
most odd - let's hope somebody else comes along soon with some more ideas....
Just to make things a bit more complicated I have just reviewed the whole directory I have been working with. I've scanned about 280 of these slides in the past week and near the beginning I find that the problem only occurrs sometimes!!! I have quite a few slides where setting both the attributes has resulted in a large jpeg file (probably the same as the original, but I cannot tell exactly since I don't have the original) - anyway the jpegs with these attributes set are near enough to 10 MB to make me think they did not get recompressed to a higher level. I just don't understand what is going on. Its wierd.
Just to save you time, I forgot to mention that I use Elements as well so it is doubtful that it is the culprit here. What is interesting is that I now see that the original image is from a scanned slide. I wonder if it is in the scanning stage that this problem starts? Does your scanning software save straight to Elements?
You're right about them being scanned images - I have a Nikon Coolscan III which I use via Vuescan on an XP machine - the images are stored as tiff to a shared directory and I use Adope Photoshop Elements on the Win 7 system to create the jpeg.
However thinking about your suggestion has made me wonder if we have hit on something. Initially I used the Vuescan software (on the XP machine) to create tiff and jpeg images in parallel in the same shared directory - remember I recently said I didn't seem to have had the problem with some of the earlier files in the directory even though I have always set the attributes with Explorer on Win 7. Later I changed my technique so that I only created the tiff image on the XP system and I used Elements to save a maximum size jpeg (as well as a tiff) image after I had done some editing of the scanned image (this meant I only needed to do the editing once). So the later jpegs were initially created with Elements whereas the earlier ones were created with Vuescan. In both cases the jpeg images were edited in Elements and the attributes set with Explorer. I wonder if there is something in the way that Elements creates the jpegs that allows Explorer to automatically resize them? I'll try some experiments later today and report back on what I find.
By the way the sfc /scannow didn't find any issues on the shared drive or the C drive.
so was the valiants photo made from elements?
i'm still wondering why my explorer didn't resize it but yours did.
anyway, happy investigating! i hope the answer turns out to be 'elementary', my dear bernard.
(*edit* yes it was made with elements)
Yes, as you discovered the Valients jpeg image was created by Elements (and stored as approx 6MB) from the Vuescan created tiff image. Haven't done the experiments yet - got to do some gardening while its still light!
Gardening - I'm down in the far South West of Cornwall and we are frozen solid here! Really!
P.S. Sorry to be pedantic but it is "Valiant" not "Valient"
You will have to move to a warmer part of the country - its been up to 39 F here in the Midlands today - lovely clear, windless day - just right for a couple of hours starting doing some of what needs to be done.
Back to the problem. I just tried saving both jpeg and tiff files from Vuescan and then seting the attributes in Explorer and I get the same results as if I created the jpeg file in Elements. In the case of Vuescan the max size jpeg it would produce was 5845 KB and this went down to 1455 KB in Explorer, whereas with Elements the max jpeg it would produce was 6650 KB and this went down to 1440 KB in Explorer. So apart from the fact that the Elements created file got compressed a litle bit more there was no difference.
I'm totally confused as to what is going on here. I have to admit I can discern very little (if any) change in quality but I hate the idea that I cannot control what is happening. I did take a long look round the registry for anything that might look useful and was associated with the word jpeg, but I did not spot anything.
Just to throw in another curved ball, I had one example where I had a small jpeg file (just over 1 MB) and changing the attributes in Explorer actually caused the file size to increase!!! I give up Windows obviously has a mind of its own and there seems to be no way to influence it.
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