Chapter Bonus Chapter 1. Prepping Web Graphics
In This Chapter
Choosing resolution, mode, and format
Understanding the GIF, JPEG, and PNG formats
Keeping color Web safe and consistent
Looking good in type
Optimizing images with Save for Web & Devices
Specifying JPEG, GIF, and PNG options
Preparing an image for display on a Web page can be just as important as creating it. That razor-sharp, 8-megapixel image you carefully composed through the viewfinder of your digital camera may end up cropped, sliced, and transformed into a miniature 128-x-128-pixel graphic perched in a corner of your Web page. Visitors to your site are likely to be more concerned with how quickly the image downloads and how clearly they can view its content than its glorious digital genesis.
Photoshop has some marvelous tools for optimizing an image for the Web, but you can (and should) prepare your images ahead of time, as well. This chapter introduces you to some of the tools and concepts you need to be familiar with before you start optimizing in earnest. And then, after you do all your prep work, you can optimize them so they look their very best, download their fastest, or some combination of the two. In most cases, the Save for Web & Devices feature provides the kind of automation and preview capabilities you need right inside Photoshop itself. But if you need some additional horsepower, you can jump to a program ...
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