Optimizing web images
This entry was posted on 7/8/2007 12:14 PM and is filed under Web Design.
OPTIMIZING WEB IMAGES
by Anna Dalea,
ERT Website Solutions
One important factor to optimizing your website deals with your images. A golden rule of thumb in web design is a 15 second page load maximum. One way to hugely impact this is through the size of your image.
There are a few different images that you can display on your website:
GIF: This format is for images with a small, set number of colors. You'll see some logos in GIF formats. GIF should not be used for images that have many colors. The more colors that you will be displaying, the better quality the file type should be. You rarely see GIFs anymore in design unless the design is cookie-cutter and simplistic. If you want your design to look high-quality, you have to use HIGH QUALITY formating.
JPEG: This file format is used for high quality, multi-color images. JPEG formats keep the file sizes down tremendously for high quality images. This format is probably the most used on websites today. If you have time to play around on Photoshop, take a picture and look at the difference in photo quality and file size comparison between JPG and PNG. It's huge!!! The only set back i've noticed with JPEG is that sometimes the images still do not look CRISP. PNG is better for HIGH-END, High-Quality images. Whereas JPEG is better for taking high quality and chopping off some file size, degrading the image only slightly.
NOTE: If you plan creating a website for ART, PHOTOGRAPHY or ACTORS/MUSICIANS the image quality has to take presedence over optimized page load times. In that case...
PNG: Often, when I'm dealing with web sites, I tend to use higher quality images... although they take up more space and load time, I try not to use codes that will add to those load times. Many clients want high quality images... if they can't handle the JPEG quality due to lack of clarity, PNG formats would be used (as long as the client is aware of the lengthly load time set back). However, as said before, this format is best for artists, photographers and actor/musicians websites as image for them IS everything!
