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Non-JPEG Bitmaps
Other types of bitmaps, for example, BMP, TIFF, or PNG bitmaps, are usually a lot larger and thus less
suitable for use in Flash animations (for photos JPEG compression is a lot better than PNG). However if
you include a low resolution PNG image (that is one of 96dpi or less ? the status line shows you the
resolution of any selected image) then this is kept as a PNG image in the Flash file. Higher resolution
images (>96dpi) will be converted into a JPEG (transparent JPEG if required) .
You can control the compression used for this automatic JPEG conversion using a slider in the Flash
Options tab of the Animation Properties
dialog. The usual compression value is 75%, but you can vary the quality, preview the animation and
quickly see the quality and size savings.
256 color or less bitmaps (such as GIF) are not encoded as JPEG and will be embedded using PNG
compression, which is usually the best compression type for these types of images
Bitmap Quality
Flash Player version 8 and later has higher quality bitmap display. This is particularly evident when
rotating or scaling bitmaps and photos, whereas older versions of the player tend to produce pixelated,
and rather jerky movements.
You can tell which version of the Flash Player you have by right clicking on any Flash animation in your
web browser and looking at the About menu.
It's therefore recommended to export your Flash animation as Version 8 if you're using bitmaps or
photos. You can control this from the Flash Options tab of the Animation Properties
dialog.
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