Can you bypass Shozam image processing by setting the image file compression to 100?

This article provides more information on two related topics:

• Users who want to bypass Shozam image processing so they can do JPEG compression and image sharpening in their image editing program of choice
• Users who want to learn more about the JPEG compression slider and what happens if they set it to 100

EXPLANATION

Shozam always processes images that it generates. You can control the file size vs. compression trade-offs in Step 5 on the Image tab for all images or in Step 2 on the Other tab on an image by image basis. Setting the slider all the way to 100 means that the program will minimize the compression of the file; the JPEG compression algorithm will provide utmost fidelity to the "original" image given. This works the same as in Adobe Photoshop when you maximize the quality of the JPEG compression (and probably the same as in your image editing program). JPEG image processing/compression has to happen each time the image is saved.Setting the slider to 100 does not mean the image will not get processed/compressed; it just means that it will compress it very little in order to achieve highest fidelity, albeit at a much larger size.

It is important to realize that if the image was already compressed for a certain file size vs. quality ratio, then setting the JPEG quality slider to 100 will only increase file size with no increase of quality. The quality of the image cannot be increased beyond that of the original, particularly if no scaling is being performed on the image.

Preventing processing of images is not typically possible at this point with Shozam but may be a feature we can consider adding at a later time (give option to not process any images that do not need to be scaled). Note that if the original image fits the size of the Large Pages but it is larger than images to fit the QuickView Pages, the images would still need to be "touched" to be scaled down for the QuickView Pages and thus processed including using the Shozam engine to do JPEG compression. So the benefit of a feature to leave "large" images alone will be limited to the Large Page images.

There are two cases by which images bypass the Shozam image processing engine:

• Including Original images in Step 2 Options tab and deselecting any scaling option
• If the image has already been processed and is available in the gallery and is not available any longer at the original location from where it was added into Shozam 
  This means that if you desire a high degree of finesse and control over the compression and sharpening of each image, you can go into the respective folders where the images reside within the gallery file structure and redo them there. If Shozam cannot find the originals at the path it expects them to be (where they were originally added into Shozam) then the program will not touch these images any longer.