Can someone tell me if a folder of targa or png files when zipped will compress as much as creating a jpg in the first place. Just to clarify, I know jpgs dont compress well when zipped as they are already compressed. I other words if I uploaded my zipped files as pngs or targas could I fit the same amount of files in roughly the same space as if they were jpegs

Generally speaking, no.

png and tga are lossless file formats, whereas a jpeg gets it's higher compression ratio by omitting minute details in the picture information. Depending on the amount of compression this can be from hard to notice to obvious.

Packing them in a rar or zip file will compress the png and tga files where possible, but it will keep thee data 100% intact.

Archiving jpg which are already compressed to the maximum and reduced in file size due to the compression ratio of the jpg will result in near zero extra compression.

So you'll always get larger archives when they contain png or tga files.

HTH

Karina

thanks, Im saving out my texture files, but haven't purchased a zipping program yet.

Try 7zip: http://www.7-zip.org

It can read and write an impressive amount of archive types, and it's free.

thanks,I'll check it out

If you're using Windows then select files, right click, send to, send to compressed folder can produce a zip but I agree 7zip is a great utility to have for this purpose. Re JPEG vs PNG, don't forget impact on image quality, for text clarity and line art PNG can be more effective than JPG

7Zip all the way, baby.

Why bother with jpg now everyone has terabytes of storage? If it's a product requirement, yes, but for personal use, stick with png.