Really good PNG export plugin for Photoshop (Mac and PC)

For a while now I have been frustrated with the options for saving PNG files in Photoshop. I don’t want to have to pay more money for Fireworks to get the optimization and other features. So I trawled Google a bit for OS X PNG utlitities and found this place http://www.ardfry.com

They do a plugin for Photoshop that enables it to save PNG files at optimized file sizes. But not only that, it also enables Photoshop to save PNG files in 8-bit colour with 256 levels of transparency just like Fireworks! So you can now save PNG files with alpha style transparency that will show in browsers such as Firefox, Safari etc, but will display as simple binary transparency automatically in IE6!

The Mac trial isn’t available publicly. But I emailed them to ask about it and they sent me the link to it. They haven’t had much feedback about the Mac version of the plugin so it would be good if Mac users could let them know what they think of it.

I’m using CS3 and it PS has the "Save for web" option which let you save any format optimized.

You might think that, but the Save For Web option in Photoshop for PNG is rubbish. Believe me. It doesn’t optimize it at all. This plugin will save PNG files MUCH smaller than the standard Export For Web option. Also Photoshop cannot save in PNG 8-bit colour with 256 levels of alpha transparency channel unless you use this plugin. If you want this without the plugin you have to use PNG-24, and IE6 cannot read those files properly at all.

very interesting, PNG 8-bit color with 256 levels of alpha transparency. got a torrent?

also would be nice to compare the differences between the Save for web and the plugin with the final file size.

I know this thread is kind of outdated, but we finally got rid of all these problems... ;-)

We made a little tool to convert normal pngs to 8bit-ones. Its just a neat little tool working with pngquant, but it does the job really good and its handy as you only need to push the images folder of your finished website on the icon and everything will work in ie - at least when talking about pngs...

I think, this thread is still read and seen, so if anybody is interested in testing it while its in beta, I could upload it here.

Rgds