Custom images and buttons pixelated on preview or publish

Hi Sam,

JPEG is a lossy format, and in most cases highly compressed. It is better to use PNG which also maintains transparency.

When going with a JPEG try not to change it's properties within Storyline too much, as the file may essentially get recompressed inside your story (hence introducing artifacts as in your screenshot above).

Also be sure to change the default Storyline compression level before publish by going to "Publish-->Quality-->Custom-->Image Quality : 100%".

Hope this helps,
Alex

As I said, both PNG and JPG gives me that same low pixelated quality. I've tried both and I usually always use PNG.

Also, I don't see the option to do the following: "Publish-->Quality-->Custom-->Image Quality : 100%".

and I'm using the latest version.

Hi Sam,

The option to change your publish quality settings occurs from the publish window within the Properties section and it'll look like this:

Hi Sam,

It should look something like this:

If you're not seeing that, it may be an issue with the file, its location, or the installation. 

Please make sure that you're working with a local project file when you modify or publish your project. If you're working on a network drive, or any other external storage, that might be causing the trouble. 

• Work on your local drive (your C: drive). Working on a network drive or a USB drive can cause erratic behavior, including file corruption, loss of audio, and other unexpected behavior. 
• You should also make sure the directory path to your project files and your published output is less than 260 characters (for example C:\Articulate).
• Avoid using special characters, accents or symbols in your file names (this includes spaces and underscores).

Additional information regarding "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces" in Windows operating systems can be found in the following Microsoft article.

It may also help to check your DPI settings.

If you're already working locally, and since you've already installed Update 5, it may help to run a quick repair:

Articulate Support - How to Repair Articulate Storyline

If you still have trouble, it might help to share a .story file here that contains one/some of the images that appear this way when previewing or publishing. 

Thanks!

I would also import images for button much larger than the necessary size.  The last time I created a course where the client had everything built in illustrator after exporting all the asset I found exporting them 10x the original size gave much better quality

Yup I found that exporting certain images larger helped. The compression issue Sam had didn't change for me after pushing the slider to 100%. I had to import a larger image. Weird though because none of my larger pngs did that. Guess it may because there's more color variation in those graphics. The image I was having trouble with was a little more "flat".

Hi, Emanuel -- Thanks for reaching out, and as this thread is quite a bit dated and Phil may no longer be subscribed, I just wanted to share that you are welcome to reach out to him directly using the 'Contact Me' link on his profile page. That would be the best way to ensure that he receives your message. Please also feel free to let us know if there is anything more we can do to assist!