How to make smaller .tga files?

[lieandswell]

Photoshop can save things as WoW-compatible .tga files, but they're kind of big. A 256x256 pixel image is ~300 KB. My guess is that Photoshop is saving a lot of other information in there about view states, histories, and such. Is there a way to strip all that extra stuff out and just get the image by itself?

[Duugu]

Originally Posted by lieandswell Photoshop can save things as WoW-compatible .tga files, but they're kind of big. A 256x256 pixel image is ~300 KB. My guess is that Photoshop is saving a lot of other information in there about view states, histories, and such. Is there a way to strip all that extra stuff out and just get the image by itself?

Photoshop don't saves additional informations within tga files.

It's not possible to create smaller files without changing the settings.
(is WoW able to handle 16 bit tga files?)

[Seerah]

It must be 32-bit. 8 each for r,g,b,a.

Size depends also on how detailed your image is.

[Duugu]

Originally Posted by Seerah Size depends also on how detailed your image is.

Really? Is RLE allowed with WoW?

[edit] I'm almost sure that 24 bit is also ok.

[lieandswell]

Originally Posted by Duugu Photoshop don't saves additional informations within tga files.

Well, when I open up a tga statusbar texture from the SharedMedia library, make no changes to it, and resave it as a 32 bit tga file, the file size goes from 68 KB to 116 KB. Either the original isn't 32 bit, is compressed, or Photoshop is adding stuff to the file.

[Duugu]

My guess is that the original is 24 bit.

[lieandswell]

If I resave the file as 24-bit tga it goes from 68 KB to 100 KB. Just open it, "save as". Same name, different location. Photoshop 7.0 on OSX 10.3.9.

Edit: Saving it RLE compressed, "Alpha channels" unchecked only goes up to 88 KB.

[Duugu]

Okehe ...

I saved a test tga as 24 bit without RLE with Photoshop CS (8.0.1) and Paint .NET. File size is exactly the same.
Of course ... it could be possible that Paint .NET adds informations too. But my believe is that the file size will be the same with any other application.

I'm not sure if wow accepts 16 bit tga files. Maybe the original file is saved as 16 bit?

[edit] 68 kb and 100 kb really looks like 16 bit/24 bit
(100/68)*16 = 23,53

[lieandswell]

Resaving 16 bit, no compression, no alpha channel: 68 KB -> 84 KB.
Resaving 16 bit, RLE compression, no alpha channel: 68 KB -> 56 KB.

Edit: I wonder if this would be happening if the original file was created on a PC but now I'm modifying it on a Mac?

[Duugu]

Well ... strange.

I'm out of ideas now.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by Duugu (is WoW able to handle 16 bit tga files?)

No. Wow can handle 28 bit and 32 bit, but not 16 bit. If you try to use a 16 bit tga in the game, the image turns white.

[lieandswell]

Well, it looks like one thing Photoshop was adding was icon & thumbnail images. That was an extra 40 KB per image, right there. Maybe I can find other things to turn off.

[Dreadlorde]

Originally Posted by lieandswell Photoshop can save things as WoW-compatible .tga files, but they're kind of big. A 256x256 pixel image is ~300 KB. My guess is that Photoshop is saving a lot of other information in there about view states, histories, and such. Is there a way to strip all that extra stuff out and just get the image by itself?

Save them as png files and convert them to blp, they'll be much smaller.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by lieandswell Well, it looks like one thing Photoshop was adding was icon & thumbnail images. That was an extra 40 KB per image, right there. Maybe I can find other things to turn off.

My Photoshop CS doesn't add icon or thumbnail images... is that a setting somewhere?

The only thumbnail images that ever got added on my machine were from Windows...... I have thumbnail caching turned off.

[lieandswell]

Originally Posted by Silenia My Photoshop CS doesn't add icon or thumbnail images... is that a setting somewhere?

On my Photoshop 7.0 it's under Preferences/File Handling.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by lieandswell On my Photoshop 7.0 it's under Preferences/File Handling.

I have CS (version 8), and in Preferences/File Handling it doesn't say anything about icons or thumbnails. It's no biggie really... was mainly just curious as I had never heard of that before. Thanks for trying to help me find it though!

[Duugu]

It's very ambiguous to me what this option is for ... but it has no effects to tga files (just tested this). I think it's about Photoshop files ... not about all file formats.
Furthermore I guess this option is different for Mac and Windows (I've read something about this in the Photoshop help), but because I know exactly nothing about Mac's I don't know what's different.

Secondly, the tga file format itself specifies a thumbnail. (tga 2.0 at least)
But the thumbnail's max size is 64x64 pixel. (which means the max size of a thumbnail is 16 kb)

Not very helpful at all.
But I'm still think that's not a Photoshop or thumbnail problem.

[lieandswell]

Well, my Photoshop has checkboxes for icon, Windows thumbnail, and Mac thumbnail. When I started saving things with these turned off, my files stopped having thumbnail images and started using the generic tga icon. Of course, right?

At the moment, my 128x128 images (32 bit w/ alpha channel) are all sitting at exactly 84 KB each. Still seems a bit big. I looked for blp converters, but the only Mac ones I found required OSX 10.4 or later.