When did Apple change the Reduce File Size Quartz filter parameters?

[Undecided]

I'm asking this just out of historical curiosity, but does anyone know when Apple changed the default parameters for the Reduce File Size Quartz filter in Preview?

Years ago, the default was very aggressive - Compression Quality = 0.0, ImageSizeMax = 512 (I don't recall the ImageResolution - 45?), so people created their own modified copies with more moderate parameters. But today I noticed that the default Apple parameters are much more moderate - Compression Quality = 0.7, ImageSizeMax = 2400 (ImageResolution 144).

So now I use Apple's as the middle ground and just updated my smaller and better options. But I was curious about when Apple made the change.

 

[benholt]

Not a definitive answer, but if you want to pin down the exact release, the filter itself is a plist at /System/Library/Filters/Reduce File Size.qfilter — the file's modification time on an older Mac can tell you when that particular macOS build shipped its version. If you have any older machines still booting an old system, quick `ls -l` on that path will get you the date.

My memory says the aggressive-by-default behavior finally got walked back somewhere around the Big Sur / Monterey window, mostly because the old one was mangling PDFs people were sending to print shops. Would be curious if anyone with a Mojave install handy can confirm.