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Photoshop - Export As - Why no Progressive JPG Option


Why does the latest version of Photoshop not have the JPG Progressive option as a choice when using the Export As option and only in the Legacy Save for Web?

Export As offers higher quality compression, so it a bit disappointing that you don't get to use it if you are optimising your images for websites with Progressive.


Google PageSpeed - Insights - Optimize Images

JPEG is a lossy format. The compression process removes visual details of the image, but the compression ratio can be 10x larger than GIF or PNG.

  • Reduce quality to 85 if it was higher. With quality larger than 85, the image becomes larger quickly, while the visual improvement is little.
  • Reduce Chroma sampling to 4:2:0, because human visual system is less sensitive to colors as compared to luminance.
  • Use progressive format for images over 10k bytes. Progressive JPEG usually has higher compression ratio than baseline JPEG for large image, and has the benefits of progressively rendering.
  • Use grayscale color space if the image is black and white.

Export As

enter image description here

Save for Web

enter image description here

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    Guessing because it's not needed (though I'm not exactly a photostop expert). See this: Progressive JPEG encoding organizes data in such a way that the image can be decoded at low quality first, and then details are added as the complete file becomes available. Therefore, while downloading the image, you can already see a "Preview" of the image.. If you don't save it for web, there's no need to use progressive saving. Commented Aug 25, 2018 at 14:26
  • I was thinking it was more along the lines of it not being compatible with their new compression algorithm. When optimising for the web, I always use Progressive on larger images as it helps page speed scores and in my opinion looks more attractive than a baseline, top-down, loading mechanism. But so far, I can't find any official documentation on it. I seem to recall a few years ago, that they said they were going to add it, but can't verify that.
    – Electron
    Commented Aug 25, 2018 at 14:42
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    That isn't the "Save as" dialog. It's "Export as". Progressive is an option in the "Save as" dialog.
    – Billy Kerr
    Commented Aug 25, 2018 at 14:49
  • Thanks @BillyKerr This is what happens when you ask questions late at night instead of sleeping! I've corrected now!
    – Electron
    Commented Aug 25, 2018 at 14:52

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Given that internet and phone data speeds have increased exponentially since the inception of the "Progressive" option, the page load speed gained by progressive jpegs has largely lost its significance.

If an image is correctly optimised using the "Baseline" option (especially small to medium sized images), there is little advantage. This is especially true when you consider the downside of "progressive", i.e. multiple HTTP requests which will also have a bearing on the page speed.

That is why it is recommended to combine all CSS files into one file, and likewise js files, in order to minimise the HTTP requests.

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    @Ovaryraptor Kindly don't edit my posts. We don't all come from USA. Other countries use "s" not "z". Commented Mar 20, 2019 at 22:26
  • A large segment of the web uses -ize when relating to tech/coding so it was only a natural instinct to update the spellings. Commented Mar 21, 2019 at 19:41

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