Photoshop® CS5 Bible

Chapter 30. Creating Images for the Web and Mobile Devices

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Preparing images for the Web

• Slicing images to enable hot spots

• Adding transparency to Web images

• Adding animated images to Web pages

• Converting images to Web formats

• Adding zoomable images to Web pages

Although Photoshop is not typically thought of as a tool used for creating Web pages, Photoshop does have some powerful features that can aid graphic designers in preparing images for Web applications. One of the biggest obstacles to overcome when preparing images for the Web is adjusting the size and file format to support the limited capabilities of Web browsers. That's where Photoshop comes in.

This chapter discusses some of the basics of how and why images are prepared for viewing on the Web, such as color settings, slicing images, and adding transparency and animation. We also discuss the Save for Web & Devices utility to prepare and output images in formats that are supported on the Web with the necessary supporting HTML data.

Preparing Images for the Web

You can prepare images for use on the Web in many ways. Web browsers support only a limited number of file formats, so images must be converted to one of these formats. You also likely need to resize images to reduce them to reasonable sizes that can be supported by the limited network bandwidth.

The following sections cover the basic Web formats, how to use color management to ensure consistency between browsers, adding animation to images, and adding transparency ...