This is a very basic quick start guide for ProJPEG™ 5.0. More detailed documentation can be found in the ProJPEG™ 5.0 Manual, if needed.
Installation in Photoshop:
To install ProJPEG™, drag the plug-in from its folder to your plug-ins folder. It is normal to place format plug-ins such as ProJPEG™ within the File Formats folder inside Photoshop's Plug-ins folder, but this is not necessary for Photoshop to load plug-ins. It is only for organizational purposes.
After you have placed ProJPEG™ in your plug-ins folder, ProJPEG™ will be available the next time you launch Photoshop as a new format option when saving images using the Save As... or Save a copy as... commands.
ProJPEG™ is a file format plug-in and will appear in the format menu in Photoshop's open and save as dialogs as "BoxTop ProJPEG". You will need to check the "Show all formats" option to access this menu when opening files, but normally that is not needed. Photoshop will pick a default method to open JPEG files for you when you double click on a file to open it from the Finder.
Installation troubleshooting:
If you have properly installed ProJPEG™ and it does not appear in Photoshop's formats menu after relaunching you should check the following in order:
1: If using Photoshop, delete its preferences file, which is located in the System Folder with versions 3.0 and 4.0. If you have Photoshop 5.0 or newer, the preferences file is located in the application folder within the Adobe Photoshop Settings folder. It is common for Photoshop to slightly corrupt its preferences file, and this will often prevent it from recognizing any new plug-ins.
2: Confirm the location where Photoshop is set to look for plug-ins in its preferences.
3: Confirm that your install of Photoshop is in fact PPC native if using Photoshop 3.0 or 4.0. 68K installs of Photoshop cannot use PPC only plug-ins such as ProJPEG™. You can check this by looking in Photoshop's About dialog, which will denote PowerPC next to the version number if it is PPC native.
4: If you used Stuffit Expander to decompress the original archive containing ProJPEG™, it is possible that it corrupted ProJPEG™ during decompression, which will happen if Stuffit Expander's preferences are corrupted or set improperly to translate line feeds in .hqx text files. You should double check your Stuffit Expander preferences and if necessary delete your Stuffit Expander preferences allowing it to create a new preferences file, and download a new copy of the archive and install a new copy of ProJPEG™ if a PPC version of Photoshop still will not recognize it.
5: If using another application besides Photoshop as your host application, it is very likely that it is simply unable to run ProJPEG™. Few third party applications support file format plug-ins, such as ProJPEG™.
General usage:
When opening files, ProJPEG™ works transparently. Photoshop will automatically choose it as the default method for opening all JPEG files. No special action needs to be taken, but to use ProJPEG™ specifically to open a file, select the open menu in Photoshop and after checking the "Show all Formats" checkbox to activate the format menu, select "BoxTop ProJPEG" from the formats menu before OK'ing the open dialog. Photoshop will then attempt to read any file with ProJPEG™.
To save a file using ProJPEG™, select the "Save as..." menu in Photoshop, then in the save as dialog, select "BoxTop ProJPEG" from the formats menu and click OK. The ProJPEG™ options dialog will then be shown for you to set compression parameters.
Minimally, you should adjust the quality slider to the desired amount while taking note of the image preview for quality and the file size display for final file size. This is the absolute and accurate file size of your JPEG file.
It is correct, but the Finder may be incorrect if you select "Get Info..." on the file afterwards. The Finder shows two numbers for file size explained below.
The first and larger number displayed to the left in the Finder's Info dialog is the allocation block size of the file. That is the amount of space allocated to hold the file on your hard disk, but not all of that space is actually used by the file.
The second and smaller number displayed to the right is the combined size of the file's data and resource forks. This number is more accurate than the first the Finder shows, but still not accurate as far as a JPEG is concerned because any data saved in the resource fork of the file is not part of the JPEG and will never be transferred to or by your web server. It is Photoshop specific information such as custom icons, image previews, and last window position while you were editing.
If you want to see the same number that ProJPEG™ shows you for file size in the Finder just to reassure yourself that it's accurate, you can use GIF Prep™ to strip the resource fork from both GIF and JPEG files, then the numbers will match. You don't need to do this, but you can if you want. Files will take up less space on your hard disk with their resource forks stripped, but it makes no difference as far as the Web is concerned.
GIF Prep™ is included in the ProJPEG download, but if you need to obtain it separately it can be downloaded from http://www.boxtopsoft.com and is freeware.
Tips for best results:
At the factory defaults, ProJPEG™ typically outperforms Adobe's JPEG at default settings. If you just want to click the button, you can click the button. However, all images can be saved using more aggressive compression settings than the defaults.
You should take advantage of the interactivity and feedback provided by ProJPEG™ to find the best settings for each individual image. JPEG compression will vary image by image.
Images can be given target file sizes in ProJPEG™, which will allow you to enter the maximum desired size of the final JPEG file and have ProJPEG™ determine the needed settings to achieve that file size, as well.
Getting help with ProJPEG™:
You should refer to the ProJPEG™ manual and FAQ included with this distribution and then to the Web based version of the FAQ maintained at http://www.boxtopsoft.com first for the answers to most common questions.
Questions not answered in the FAQs should be emailed to info@boxtopsoft.com
BoxTop Software, Inc.
PO Box 2347
Starkville, MS 39760
voice +1-662-263-5410
fax +1-662-263-5412
http://www.boxtopsoft.com
info@boxtopsoft.com
ProJPEG™ is Copyright 1995-2001 BoxTop Software, Inc. All rights reserved. ProJPEG™ is a trademark of BoxTop Software, Inc., which may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other trademarks are recognized as the properties of their respective holders.
Copyright 2001 BoxTop Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
