Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

Saving Images for the Web or Email

If you plan to email your photos or put them up on your website, Save For Web is a terrific feature that takes any open image and saves it in a web-friendly format. It also gives you lots of options to help maintain maximum image quality while keeping file size to a minimum. Save For Web aims to create as small a file as possible without compromising the image's onscreen quality.

Save For Web creates smaller JPEG files than you get by merely using Save As, because it strips out the EXIF data, the information about your camera's settings (see Saving Your Work). To get started with Save For Web, go to File → Save For Web or press Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S. The dialog box shown in Figure 17-1 appears.

Figure 17-1. The Save For Web dialog box makes it easy to get the exact image size and quality you want. The left image shows your original image, and the right image shows what your web-friendly image will look like at its new file size, format, and quality.

The most important point to remember when saving images for the Web is that the resolution (measured in pixels per inch, or ppi) is completely irrelevant. You just care about the image's pixel dimensions, such as 400 X 600. If you're working with a photo that you've optimized for print, you almost certainly want to downsize it; Save For Web makes that a snap.

Elements gives you a lot of useful tools in the Save ...