Images can greatly enhance and bring a website to life. Nevertheless, if your photos are not prepared in the correct way, they can cause your web pages to upload slowly. This makes for a poor user experience and will ultimately decrease your search engine page ranking. Photoshop is commonly used to optimise photos to be used on websites. There are several things to consider while preparing images.
Image Resolution indicates how detailed a picture is. Digital image resolution is measured in pixels per inch (PPI). A pixel is a single dot. The higher the density of pixels, the clearer the picture will appear. Images for use on websites should ideally be 72PPI.
Image size refers to the physical size of an image, width x height. This too is measured in pixels. The most commonly used size is between 250 to 350 pixels for width and height. If you require photos to be displayed at a larger size than this, smaller thumbnail images could be used which enlarge into a new window when clicked on. This will not slow your website down and the user can still see large images.
Making your photos a suitable resolution and size for use on websites is essential. Large photos with a high resolution will have a big file size and therefore be slow to upload whenever a user visits your website. For acceptable upload speeds, images should not be larger than 100KB. Images which are slow to upload won't just frustrate the user but may also jeopardise the page's ranking within search engines. Google monitors page speed and could soon be favouring web sites that have faster web page loading speeds as they will give a much better user experience.
The file type you choose to save your image as will depend on the subject of the image you are optimizing. JPEGs are suitable for illustrations and photos where there are numerous colours and where gradients need to be smooth. However, JPEGs can lose some quality if they are compressed or go through several edits, and so are unsuitable for images where data needs to be reproduced exactly.
GIFs are good for simpler images with few colors, i.e. logos, buttons, graphs, diagrams, banners and cartoons. A GIF file will maintain sharp outlines and flat color. PNG file types are useful for images that have areas of transparency. They will preserve the section of transparency whereas the equivalent image saved as a JPEG will replace the transparent section with a white background making the file size much bigger.
To save an image, choose the 'Save for Web' option in the 'File' drop down menu in Photo shop. Here you can choose the file type you want to save your image as and view its file size. It's also possible to alter the quality of the image to lessen the file size if needed. Do not overwrite your original image with your optimized image, create a new file name.
Taking the time to format your images effectively prior to adding them to a web page is invaluable. It will not only help to make your webpages look more attractive but also help your page ranking and improve the user experience of your web site.
Image Resolution indicates how detailed a picture is. Digital image resolution is measured in pixels per inch (PPI). A pixel is a single dot. The higher the density of pixels, the clearer the picture will appear. Images for use on websites should ideally be 72PPI.
Image size refers to the physical size of an image, width x height. This too is measured in pixels. The most commonly used size is between 250 to 350 pixels for width and height. If you require photos to be displayed at a larger size than this, smaller thumbnail images could be used which enlarge into a new window when clicked on. This will not slow your website down and the user can still see large images.
Making your photos a suitable resolution and size for use on websites is essential. Large photos with a high resolution will have a big file size and therefore be slow to upload whenever a user visits your website. For acceptable upload speeds, images should not be larger than 100KB. Images which are slow to upload won't just frustrate the user but may also jeopardise the page's ranking within search engines. Google monitors page speed and could soon be favouring web sites that have faster web page loading speeds as they will give a much better user experience.
The file type you choose to save your image as will depend on the subject of the image you are optimizing. JPEGs are suitable for illustrations and photos where there are numerous colours and where gradients need to be smooth. However, JPEGs can lose some quality if they are compressed or go through several edits, and so are unsuitable for images where data needs to be reproduced exactly.
GIFs are good for simpler images with few colors, i.e. logos, buttons, graphs, diagrams, banners and cartoons. A GIF file will maintain sharp outlines and flat color. PNG file types are useful for images that have areas of transparency. They will preserve the section of transparency whereas the equivalent image saved as a JPEG will replace the transparent section with a white background making the file size much bigger.
To save an image, choose the 'Save for Web' option in the 'File' drop down menu in Photo shop. Here you can choose the file type you want to save your image as and view its file size. It's also possible to alter the quality of the image to lessen the file size if needed. Do not overwrite your original image with your optimized image, create a new file name.
Taking the time to format your images effectively prior to adding them to a web page is invaluable. It will not only help to make your webpages look more attractive but also help your page ranking and improve the user experience of your web site.
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