Expert: Tom Rouze - 9/22/2005

Question
Hiya.
I made two posters in illustrator 10 that are pretty simple. Title Text, image, end text. The only difference is one image is a jpg (3mb) and one uses a gif (330kb).

the files sizes are very different tho.. one is 42MB, and the other 1mb. also the icons AI 10 used are dif, ones a flower on a page, the other a lady.

do you know why the file size of the poster with the jpg would be SO large?

Thank you so much for volunteering your time.
Sadiya

Answer
Hello Sadiya,

The simple answer to your question is the JPEG file is a higher resolution.  GIF files (72 ppi) are mainly used for web publishing or viewing on a monitor not printing.  If you print a gif you'll see that it's not too crisp and clear.
Did you apply any effects to the image, text, etc...? did you use the image more than once? i.e. copy and paste?  Also the more you manipulate the image the more you are adding information (making the file larger).  I normally recommend that any image manipulation (resizing, rotation, etc...) be done in Photoshop.
I hope this helped.  If you would like to know more just ask.
Thank you,

Tom