Overview: Images on the Web

Overview:

Images on the Web: Key Concepts
by Agatha Taormina

	You will want to put images on your web pages. However, images are much more memory-intensive than text. Thus you need to be aware of the sizes of the images you place on your pages. Keep your images small, no larger than 450 (w) x 300(h) pixels. Put no more than a maximum of 30 kb of graphics in any one file. Reuse images to speed downloading.
	To maintain a well-organized web site, store all of your images in a separate images folder inside the folder that contains your web pages.
	Browsers can read two types of image files: .gif files .jpg files
*.gif Files	Gif files were developed by CompuServe. They are platform-independent; that is, they can be viewed by a browser on any computer regardless of the operating system. Gifs can only display 256 colors. Thus they are more suitable for clip art.	Note: gif stands for graphic interchange format
*.jpg Files	Jpg files were developed in the early 1990s by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) at the International Standards Organization. They, too, are platform-independent. Jpg files can use the entire color spectrum. Thus they are your best choice when you want to display photographs or artwork on the web.
	You can get images for your pages from a variety of sources: You can create your own images with graphics software such as Paintshop Pro, Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Image Composer. You can transfer images to a diskette or hard drive with a scanner. You can take photographs with a digital camera. You can have your existing photographs digitized by a film-processing service. You can buy a CD-Rom full of clip art. You can download images from the web. Note: If you do scan or download images, be aware that if an image is under copyright you cannot legally use it without asking the permission of the owner.
	Many web sites offer large collections of free clip art, bullets, buttons, horizontal rules, and tiled backgrounds that you can use on your web site. A list of such sites can be found on my Web Links page. To copy an image from such a site, right click on the image. When the pop-up menu appears, choose Copy and copy the image to a location on your diskette or hard drive.