PNG Compression, Does it work?

[JREAM]

In Photoshop I can't choose smaller PNG settings with the 24-bit like I can with a gif or jpg, so ..

I'm wanting to compress some 24-bit PNG files, as they are multi-level transparency it looks great except they are rather large if you add them all up. I don't know any other way besides PNG-24 to do multi-level transparency on the web. *I know IE6 has PNG problems but nothing a JS fix won't change.

I've seen a CMD line png reducer, I haven't tried it yet. I was wondering if anyone used any PNG Compression and has it made a difference?

[Varelse]

PNG compressor programs can do a great job on reducing the image size, but even a perfectly compressed 24-bit PNG with full transparency channel will be much bigger than the 8-bit one.
I am using a free version of PNGOut and I am happy with the results. They have also published a great PNG Photoshop plugin (http://www.ardfry.com/png-plugin/) with PNG compression, chunk (including color profile) removal and PNG8/8 (8-bit image + full 8-bit transparency) output.

[JREAM]

That is cool i might consider it if i really go crazy, i relaized i could cut down on a lot of PNG's if I just act clever about it too

[GeertDD]

I am using a free version of PNGOut and I am happy with the results. They have also published a great PNG Photoshop plugin (http://www.ardfry.com/png-plugin/) with PNG compression, chunk (including color profile) removal and PNG8/8 (8-bit image + full 8-bit transparency) output.

Do you know of a similar plugin compatible with mac?

Why couldn't Photoshop support PNG8 alpha transparency out of the box? They did not add that in CS4, did they?

[Varelse]

Unfortunately not
I've only seen someone's advice to install ImageMagick and run a command:
convert +gamma 0 badcolor.png goodcolor.png
to fix image display across the browsers.