“Save for web” on Tiger (10.4) requires X11 :-(
Oops, I just realized (merci françois) that ImageMagick, which is required for the save for web feature actually requires X11 to be installed. It is installed by default on Leopard but not on Tiger.
So if you are running Tiger and ChocoFlop always answers “This doesn’t seem to be a valid ImageMagick folder :-(” you just need to install X11. It’s on your Tiger install DVD. Apple didn’t find it useful to post it on the web.
In the next release I’ll make the error message clearer.
I don’t think that it is installed by default on leopard either.
ImageMagick on my machine was obtained via ports.
The blog I linked says that now X11 is integrated. Not an official source though. I upgraded to Leopard and I already had X11 installed with Tiger so I don’t really know for sure.
Does ImageMagick instally by ports work with ChocoFlop? For me it only seems to work with a separate folder, otherwise I get a a warning about an incompatible libjpeg version.
Yep the current version available from ports works fine.
Sorry I thought you were talking about ImageMagick being installed by default under Leopard vs. Tiger
Hm, just curious… when you say ImageMagick from ports works fine, you mean when using it standalone in the Terminal? Or does it work with ChocoFlop? (I never managed it to get to work on my system).
On my system (G5 iMac, OS 10.4.11), X11 was already installed. I downloaded ImageMagick (all 96.9 mb of it!) and selected Save for Web. The ImageMagick/Export for Web dialogue box appeared, so it seems to be working. The problem is, I have no idea how to configure the settings. What are we supposed to do with it? I tried saving a PNG with transparency, but it didn’t work. Nothing would open it, probably because the Finder reported the file-size as zero.
In Preview, you just click the ‘Alpha’ checkbox and the transparency is saved.
Why not just use Preview?
You have to show ChocoFlop where the ImageMagick folder is located (by clicking on the button that says “where’s ImageMagick”.
Do you see the preview of the file in the view on the right? You should.
Transparency isn’t supported yet. It will sooner or later. As for using preview, the goal of using ImageMagick as a backend is to get much better compression ratios. If you don’t need smaller files you can just use the normal save that will save your png with transparency.
ImageMagick is installed in the Applications folder, but it doesn’t seem to be working. The ‘where’s ImageMagick’ button doesn’t appear. Clicking the left-hand button at the bottom of the Save for Web dialogue box opens another box titled ‘Select the home folder for ImageMagick’. If you choose the Applications folder, it’s already there…! ?
When the Save for Web dialogue box opens, Instead of seeing a preview of the file, an hourglass icon appears.
Concerning transparency, in CF, if you cut away part of an image, copy to the Clipboard, switch to Preview and select ‘New from Clipboard’, the transparency is preserved.
Smaller PNG files can be created in the freeware Ping. It’s only 512k.
To create smaller JPEGs, open in Preview and drag the slider to the left. It must be possible to automate the procedure—via an Automator action, perhaps?
The web page editor Freeway does a good job with small images. Virtually any bitmap can be imported. To reduce the number of colours, drag the ‘Colors’ slider to the left. The results can be seen immediately in Freeway.
It might not support it. but Chocoflop still seems to export transparency. When a Preview image is saved as a TIFF or PNG and opened in Photoshop, the transparent areas that were created in Chocoflop appear in an extra (alpha) channel. What’s going on?
The “Where’s ImageMagick folder” is the one on the bottom left. There’s no other (only the label changes). YOu have to go inside the ImageMagick folder and click select. Future versions will be able to download ImageMagick (a stripped down version) and install it all alone.
When I speak about smaller PNG I am talking to the byte. The combination of ImageMagick AdvPNG really gives you the smallest filesize possible. That’s important for me personnally since I work in mobile applications and every byte counts. I use ChocoFlop daily for that and it works pretty well.
I haven’t tested the web export on 10.4 personnally but other users have reported it to work. It’s stil a bit rough on the edges but it will get refined with time (and work).