Creating Images for the Web

[King Kong Matt]

OK...I know we all use different pieces of software, but is there a general practice that I can learn from the olders and wisers here about creating an image for the web?

Specifically, my question is this: I am starting out with an image file that is typically 23 inches by something and around 2MB in size. What is the best way to get something Scubaboard-able with minimal loss of image quality? I imagine (and maybe I am wrong) that means something in the vicinity of a 4x6 or 5x7 image less than 200K.

Comments? Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Matthew

[Dee]

Maybe Rooster, Finesse, or one of the others can explain about resolutions, compressions, etc. to you...I'm not so sure I understand it enought to explain it to someone else!

I have my photos on a hosting site in different albums. This particular site re-sizes my original .jpg files so I can post the photos as URLs and not be restricted to uploading small files sizes.

Sorry I can't help

[DiveTub]

Ok how to set your image to fit on the page and be small enough not to take a week to download.

First take your image and resize it to whatever you want it to be on the screen say 5X7inches or 6X4

now set your DPI to screen resolution that is is 72dpi

finally save it as jpg now you have a file well under 200k

Of course you would never be able to print from this file but it will look great on a computer screen.

Keep the origional file nice and large, so if you ever want to print it you can.

The secret is in the DPI (Dots Per Inch)
The difference is a computer screen is 72dpi so a 6X4" image @100% uncompressed will be will be 486K

But if you wanted to print the same 6X4" file you would need it at 300dpi the image will be 8.24Mb.

You can however get a nice 6X4 from a smaller file say at 150dpi now the same image is 2.06Mb or about the size of your origional file.

Cheers
Chris

[Spectre]

If you're using photoshop, what I generally do is just use "Save images for web". I use the resize in there to do the resizing. I usually make them 533x400 and let Photoshop use the default jpeg quality compression for their "web" saving...

[Jonathan]

the above advice is good and I am glad you are interested - too many people out there on the web are used to asdl or whatever and don't care about us poor schmucks on 56k!

Thanks
Jonathan

[Finesse]

With what has already been stated above......Chris did a nice job explaining the ins and outs of resizing.....
And Spectre has the right idea of the Size to use for webshot.....

I also set the largest dimension of the photo at around 500 then, with my software, the other dimension is automatically set in proportion…. I think 375 (to avoid distorting the picture). People seem to like that size for email and such. Several of the photo webhosts will auto resize if your picture is to large.

AS mentioned this can mess up you ability to get great print results (using a small resized pic to print a larger photo). Because of that I'll save the resized photo with a different file name so I can keep the original and not sacrifice quality.

You probably know this…..Just right click on some of the images and look at the properties to get a feel for the image size that is being used.

Scott

[King Kong Matt]

Thanks all for the help...I have been playing around with the software included in my new Olympus 4040z (Photoshop Elements...not bad) and I think I have begun to get the hang of working with this stuff.

Another question for the group. Any suggestion for a photo-sharing site? One that everyone really likes? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks again,
Matt

[Spectre]

King Kong Matt once bubbled...
Another question for the group. Any suggestion for a photo-sharing site? One that everyone really likes? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Why www.scubahosting.com of course. I chose www.scubaphotos.com