New to GIMP photo program..need help...

SO I dont really love any of the Christmas photo cards on Costco (but this is where I want to order them from) SO I figured I would try and make one myself...bec they give an option for a blank card..

I spend a VERY long time...designing it...and when I finally (we are talking hrs) got it to where I liked it, by the time I changed it to a jpg and printed out a test copy ..it was only 384 kb...Their website warned me it is too low of a quality and would prob come out graining (i saw this myself with even my printer)

what did do wrong? I am on a mac and this is the only photshop-type program I have...

Thanks for any expert advice!

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Re: New to GIMP photo program..need help...

How much did you compress it? Because you can choose that when you save it. I usually save it at 99 or 98% so that it is not the largest file size, but close to the largest size.

Re: New to GIMP photo program..need help...

http://www.gimpusers.com/


I agree, it's usually in the conversion process when you save as a jpg. It will ask you for the compression ration. Also, once you save it, you can open the jpg image on your computer and see how it looks. A 20" version will look much worse than a 5x7 version, so if it looks OK on your screen, it will look fine printed. The website is just basing their suggestion on image size, not the image quality itself, so it's just a rough guess.

Re: New to GIMP photo program..need help...

whenever and where ever it asked I saved it as the max...which was why I was shocked it was so low in quality =(