Optimizing Images
One of the most common mistakes made in website design is using images whose files are too large. This results in a site that loads too slowly. If your site doesn’t load within a few seconds, you will start losing visitors. Therefore, taking the time to optimize your images can directly result in more traffic for your site.
The biggest rule you should remember is don’t resize your image in your website design program. The image will be smaller, but your file size remains the same. You must resize your image in an image editing program which will actually decrease the file size. Some of these programs include Adobe Photoshop, Dynamic Drive’s Image Optimization, or CorelDraw. You may also find some less expensive or no cost programs such as Graphics Workshop which will accomplish the same task.
Next, you need to understand the different types of image files. JPEG files are designed to optimize images with fine gradations of color. JPEG is great to use on photographs, as colors are not lost in compression, however data is. With GIF files, no data is lost but you do loose color when compressed. If your image has sharp lines or text, GIF files would be best. PNG is a newer technology, and gives you the best of both worlds. However, since it is a newer type of file, not all browsers will support it.
When optimizing your images, you must consider quality versus size. You want a small file size, but if that means the quality of the image becomes poor then your efforts are useless. Test your images to get a good quality image at a decent size, and then see how long it takes for your site to load. The extra time spent correctly optimizing your image will be worth it in the end!