Image Optimization

    You have probably heard it said many times, but what does it mean?  The phrase a picture is worth a thousand words means a picture may be more easily used to convey an idea more quickly and effectively than the written word alone.  Writers of texts that describe concepts involving imagery or abstract thoughts need many words to get their points across. And you can readily imagine when you are shown a picture how more quickly the “light bulb” comes on in your mind.  This is because a photograph, artwork, drawing or graphic can often demonstrate an idea with one look, much more quickly than a narrative can explain things.  How many times have you tried to assembly an item by the instructions, but instead turned to the picture illustrations to figure out how it should be done?

     Even though more and more Internet users switch to broadband every year, a large portion of the web's population is still running on good old dialup connections. It is therefore unwise to count them out of the equation when you're designing your website, and a very major consideration we have to make for dialup users is the loading time of your website.  Let’s face the truth:  it simply takes a LOT longer to load graphics onto your web site than it does the text.  And if people have to wait TOO long (seconds) they will leave your site.

     Generally, all the text on your website will be loaded in a very short time even on a dialup connection. The culprit of slow-loading sites is mainly large images on your website, and it is very important to strike a delicate balance between using just enough images to attract your users and not too many to bog down the overall loading time of your site.

     You should also go to a greater length and optimize every image on your site to make sure it loads in the least time possible. What I really mean is to use image editing software to remove unnecessary information on your images, and thereby effectively reducing the file size of your image without affecting its appearance. This will probably sound more difficult to you than it really is.

     If you own Photoshop, it will be obvious to you that when you save an image as a JPEG file, a dialog box appears and lets you choose the "quality" of the JPEG image -- normally a setting of 8 to 10 is good enough as it will preserve the quality of your image while saving it at a small file size. If you do not have Photoshop, there are many free image compressors online that you can download and use to reduce your image's file size.  Just go on the web and do a Google search for these image compressors.

     On the other hand, you can opt to save your images in PNG format to get the best quality at the least file size. You can also save your images in GIF format -- the image editing software clips away all the color information not used in your image, hence giving you the smallest file size possible. However, saving in GIF format will often compromise the appearance of your image, so make your choice wisely!

     All this may sound like a lot of extra work on your part.  However, optimizing your site images may not only reduce your load time, but provide your next potential customer with a better experience.

QUOTE TO CONSIDER

THOUGHTFUL GEM

"A picture captures but a moment in time,

but that 'frozen' moment can relate a lifetime."