Make Internet images good
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
I'd put money on the probability that most Internet users have had to grab and optimize screenshots for cyber use. While some of us are lucky enough to have professional graphic artists on our side, it's important to know how to quickly create and touch up an image for the Web. For example, you might want to create your own avatar from a real-life photo or digital graphic.
Editing images for the Web is a different process than editing for print, and it therefore calls for its own approach. That's primarily because screen resolution can affect how easily the eye can interpret graphics. Ever noticed that faint flicker on the screen? Eyes have to work harder to overcome that subtle interference and process a clear image.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Image capture
The "print screen" button standard to most desktops and laptops takes a full-screen capture that copies into Word and text documents. It's OK in a pinch, but the technology is simply outdated. Other programs utilize more-advanced capture and editing features, including SnagIt and Ashampoo Magic Snap. Interestingly, more publishers are integrating proprietary screen-capture software into their applications. The popular virtual world Second Life and GOM Media Player, for example, let users take screenshots without having to stop what they're doing to launch an external app.
Image editing
Though many screenshot programs contain editing tools, few are as powerful as dedicated image editors. Adobe Photoshop Elements has excellent tools for touching up and resizing photos within your chosen ratio. The free, much more focused Paint.NET is also great at preserving image ratio, though weak red-eye tools make it less than ideal for publishing portraits.
Whichever of the many image editors you choose for importing the graphic, the important thing is to save it in the right format and with the right quality. Adobe products differentiate with a "save to Web" mode, which presents a window for previewing the image when it's published.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
As users' Internet connection speed varies, images are best saved at medium or medium-high quality. They should appear smooth in the preview window, not grainy. The JPG format is really ideal for photos, whereas images with limited colors present better as GIFs.
Jessica Dolcourt reviews the latest and greatest smartphone apps, in addition to a healthy dose of Windows software. E-mail Jessica and follow her on Twitter. 
- PNG is free.
- compresses better than GIF in almost every case (5% to 25% in typical cases)
- variable transparency, cross-platform control of image brightness and color correction
- two-dimensional interlacing
- PNG is a modern new graphic format (was developed around 1995 and has became a W3C recommendation in 1996)
Now let's talk about GIF
- The biggest issue surrounding the GIF format is that the LZW algorithm is protected in some countries by a patent held by the company Unisys.
- compresses worst than PNG in almost every case
- GIF was developed in the late 1980's. It's an old standard.
As for animations ... better use macromedia flash!
So... as gp84rules already told us ... images with limited colors DOES NOT present better as GIFs.
Images with limited colors present better as PNGs!
I am horrible with graphics. I have a hard enough time trying to get images to upload on forums that have a 9kb size limit on attachments. On those sites, the ONLY format I can use is JPG, because JPG is the "only" format that will compress down lower then 20kb in size, farthest I've ever gotten a GIF down to is 60k, PNG the farthest is maybe 30k at best, but JPG I've gotten down to as far as 4k before, using all identical images, so I don't agree with those comments at all above.
and best of luck...:)
PNG (and GIF) was designed for images with LIMITED colors. In order to gain from using the PNG file format you have to reduce the number of colors in the image. Any decent image editor can do this. PNG it's better to use for images with no more than 256 colors and big plain surfaces having the same color (icons, buttons and other stuff like this).
JPEG is a lossy compression technique for color images. As compression goes better the JPEG image lose quality. You can easily notice "JPEG artifacts" on images with big plain surfaces having the same color. PNG compression is based on reducing the number of colors in the image. JPEG is based on losing informations from the image using math. If a image use only 64 colors, for example, saving the image as PNG you will preserve the original image unaltered. Saving as JPEG will probably output a mess...
You should chose JPEG if:
- the image is a big image (width/height)
- the image is a true color image with a lot of colors
- the image does not have big plain surfaces using the same color
- you don't care about altering the original image by JPEG "artifacts"
Usualy photos fit in this area.
You should chose PNG if:
- the image is little (width/height)
- the image has no more than 255 colors
- the image has big plain surfaces using the same color
- you do not want to alter the original image with unpredictable artifacts
Usualy icons and other website background images fit in this area.
- misrepresentation of Paint.NET
- by illusionaryz June 30, 2007 9:33 PM PDT
- In this article and the video in which you demonstrated Paint.NET, misrepresented the capabilities of the red-eye removal tool. Y'know that red halo around the eye after you used the tool? Well, here's the thing. Did you notice how the halo EXACTLY followed the edge of what you had selected at the time of using the tool. Amazing, yeah? You need to select the ENTIRE eye to remove the red from it! If the entire eye is not selected, the tool ignores any pixels outside of the selection. Try again, using the tool CORRECTLY, and you'll find that calling the tool "weak" is hardly appropriate. All this and more is in the documentation, so next time, please make sure you KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING before you criticize something, okay? Cool.
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