Making Images Web Ready

When deciding whether to attach a digital picture to an email, add it to a blog or upload it to your personal web space you need to consider the needs of the end viewer. For example if you are sending a picture to someone to print an 8 x 10 by glossy photo than you may want to keep it as is. If the viewer is only going to view the photo it is a good idea to make it web ready. In general you should make the file size smaller to allow for quicker downloading and easier viewing. If you need to make it web ready here are 5 easy ways to go about it.
1. Cropping – With cropping you cut out the part of the image that is unnecessary. This maybe eliminating some of the back ground or just cutting out the face of the person in the image to create a portrait.
2. Change the file format – Changing the file format to GIF may make the file size smaller. GIFs use fewer colors. If the image only uses a few colors you can make a JPEG a GIF and you may not lose much detail. This will also enable you to make your backgrounds transparent.
3. Compress – You can compress the file or make it smaller. JPEG are “lossy” so as you compress the file you are losing data from the image but if it is only going to be in a digital format this may not be a problem.
4. Change resolution – Reducing the PPI or pixels per inch to 72 or 96 will generally not make the image look worse on a computer screen.
5. Indexed color – When you use indexed color you are limiting the colors in an image by using a palette of colors. This will limit the amount of colors used in the image thus making the file size smaller.