Optimize Your Photos for the Web

December 30, 2007 | By Doug In Digital Cameras |

It doesn’t matter if your emailing photos of your grandson or putting images of your latest product on your online store. Too many people don’t consider optimizing their photos for the web. We’ve all been on too many web pages where it seemed that the photos would never load, and sometimes they didn’t. So here are some steps to make sure that your photos show up on your site.

1. Always have a back up original format copy of your image. Never alter the original. Believe me you will regret it.

2. Crop to size. Make sure that you crop out any extra information that isn’t needed. Remember the larger the photo the longer it takes to load or send.

3. Resize to reduce pixels. There should be an option to resize according to pixels. You’re going to want the largest size to be no more than 250 pixels or you can reduce the dpi to no more than 96.

4.Reduce the color palette. Many images have millions of colors so the first thing that you need to do is reduce the colors to 256. You will lose some depth with this.

5. Save the file in a standard format. JPEG is the most common for photos and you can compress the image with a JPEG for further reduction in file size. It’s not unusual to see GIF or PNG as well.

Remember that with a 56k connection a 150k file will take 20 seconds to load. If you’re creating a web page every photo that you add will add to the time it takes to download all of the images. If you keep the images small in size the smaller resolution will not be as obvious.

About The Author

Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently she started her own business Kelly Paal Photography (www.kellypaalphotography.com). She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W50 is an ideal camera for starting out right in digital photography, combining the quality of 6.0 megapixels and Carl Zeiss 3X Optical zoom, the performance of High Sensitivity mode for great low-light shots, the simplicity of on-
Used Price: ?93.99
Customer Review: Excellent Value for Money !!!
Recently bought this camera (June 2007) to take on holiday to Spain. (?127 through Amazon from Pix Mania - and I see it has gone up in price (bargain) - excellent price.) Bought a 4Gb (Official) Sony Memory Stick for approx. ?40. - Can take 1,334 pictures at 6meg (Over 5,000 pictues at 2meg) and up to 3 hours of VGA Movie. One full charge lasted me 7 days on holiday without the need for a recharge. (Although I did only take about 400 photos and a few videos). Previous reviews said that the opening slot for the battery and card was flimsy and could come off. I have had no problem with it up to now. Processing speed is excellent (even with the flash, which is also excellent). Burst and Multi Burst option is brilliant, particularly ‘burst’, when taking shots of the family it takes 3 pictures a split second apart. (Stops the normal blinking, and throat shots just as the shutter opens). Optical Zoom (x3) is really good. Macro is excellent if required. (I pictured some close ups of ‘bugs’ just to see the effect). The scroll wheel to take differing shots is unique - no need to open up the menu options and mess about). 2.5 inch LCD screen is a must. I’m not a semi-pro photographer so ISO speeds and white images mean nothing to me….but if you want a good priced camera, Sony at that, Carl Zeiss lens (unbeatable allegedly) and quick processing speed (so your subjects aren’t hanging around for that second shot) then this is the camera for you.
Customer Review: You honestly can’t go wrong with this
Bought this camera around a month ago, and I couldn’t fault it in any way. Slim, stylish, superb pictures, really easy to use…I could go on! A word of advise though, Red Eye Reduction is off as a default so make sure you check the manual and turn it on as my first hundred pics or so were spoiled by the most outrageously red eyes! Unlike the other reviewer I had no problem with my battery pack, has lasted weeks despite frequent use and has not needed recharging yet (which is extremely straightforward anyway). You’ll also must buy a new memory card but that’s the same for all cameras. Just buy it you wont regret it!
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Used Price: ?84.99
Customer Review: A simple & easy to use camera with great results!
I’ve owned the SONY DSC-P72 for well over a year now and I’ve been nothing but happy with it. The functions and options are easy to use in the well displayed menu options on the camera. The quality of picture is fantastic. Even the “motion picture” option gives a clear picture with good recorded sound. I highly recommend purchasing an additional memory stick, as the camera only comes with a 16MB stick included. This is not much space at all, especially if you plan to use the “movie” function. As the camera supports Pro Memory Stick’s, this allows you to purchase a stick that holds huge amounts of storage space for very little extra money. I think it’s something about compressing the information, but however it works, there is no loss of quality at all. I bought a 512MB stick for the camera and never ran out of space on a two week holiday where I went photo and filming crazy. The camera’s zoom function is good, but be warned that you can not use the zoom whilst filming. No huge hassle but worth pointing out! When the camera is fully charged the batteries seem to last for ages. But charging the cameras batteries to their limit does take a while. The charger and batteries are all included with the camera by the way! The batteries are just rechargeable AA batteries so in the case of a camera ‘emergency’ you can just use standard AA batteries. This can be very handy when you’re on holiday etc. Putting the photos on your home computer and/or printing them off couldn’t be simpler! The whole process is explained simply from start to finish, and the camera comes with all the software you need for the photos. All in all, I thought the camera was a fantastic buy and does exactly what I want it to do. I’m no professional photographer, but for everyday use, the SONY DSC-P72 is a simple and easy to use camera that delivers great looking results. Highly recommended!
Customer Review: Not So Good
I bought the Sony DSC P72 digital camera in July 2003. At the time it had rave reviews and was supposedly one of the best mid range digital cameras to buy. I am not a great photographic buff, but it produces perfectly good quality still photos. The only problem with this camera is that if you want to take photos of any moving objects (Such as children) the camera will take the photo long after the subject has moved on to something more interesting. It still delays taking the photo even if you hold the shutter release so all the computation is done before fully releasing it. In comparison with my old Canon 35mm SLR it is just too slow. I understand this is a general problem of digital photography and that new cameras are faster. If you’ve got children or want to take any other quick snaps, get a newer (or better) camera, not the Cybershot DSC P72.
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