Web Design For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 10. Building Web Graphics from the Ground Up

In This Chapter

• Exploring the difference between vector and bitmap graphics

• Understanding monitor and image resolutions for the Web

• Using tools like Fireworks and Photoshop to create Web graphics

• Integrating stock and digital photo images

• Scanning images for the Web

Just when you thought you could get away with a completely bland, text-only Web site, reality and peer pressure set in. Today's Web sites are chock-full of eye-popping graphical coolness. To keep up with the Joneses and, as studies have shown, increase the usability and credibility of your site, your visual design must sparkle with the best of them.

After you come to terms with this basic fact of Web life, how do the artistically challenged proceed? A good place to start: Become proficient in the rules, tools, and techniques that surround the creation of Web graphics. Mastering the skills is half the battle. The other half is tapping your own creativity. Good design training doesn't hurt of course.

In this chapter, I discuss some basic issues surrounding Web graphics, I take a look at the leading software tools, and I walk you through techniques for churning out professional-quality graphics. Whether you're a seasoned designer from the print world or completely new to design, with a little practice you'll be cooking up Web graphics juicy — or cheesy — enough to eat.

Bitmap versus ...