Home » Support » Online Help » Managing Images » Preparing Images for Web Use - Overview
Preparing Images for Web Use - Overview
Image files will invariably require resizing and compressing before uploading them to your site. Why? Large images are problematic because:
- They make a page look untidy and unprofessional.
- They slow down the page loading time, which is bad for usability.
- They can break the page layout.
- They can upset people (well, the more sensitive types, anyway).
There are some exceptions to this principle. In a photo gallery, for example, you may wish to view larger versions of images, one at a time. However, photo galleries are best created using a specific add-on feature (ask if you require one) or a 3rd party photo sharing service such as Google's Picasa or Yahoo's Flickr.
Thus, if you wish to upload images and use them in typical web pages you will need to reduce the images to a reasonably small size - both in terms of the image dimensions and the image file size.
In addition, you may wish to crop photos to remove background details and focus in on the subject of interest. Photos can also be 'retouched' to address defects such as red eyes, and contrast or colour issues.
It is often possible to do all of these tasks using the software that came with your digital camera; however, there are free alternatives that you may find simpler to use and that may have more useful features.
Refer to the following help pages for more details:
- Cropping and retouching images (optional photo editing tasks)
- Resizing and compressing images