Imagine That! (Page 1 of 5)

Overview

This file discusses at length graphic file formats and things to keep in mind when creating and using graphic files. It is basically in 4 parts:

Graphic file formats (best uses and comparisons)
Planning (several considerations)
Do-it-yourself (drawing, scanning, & other ways to acquire images)
Coding images into your Web page (the <IMG> tag; attributes, and uses)

When it comes to digital imaging, these are very exciting times. Digital photography is taking real steps forward, the price of scanners has dropped considerably over the past few years, photographic quality printers are appearing, there are many color matching schemes fighting for dominance (I must say, personally I prefer Pantone), the new PNG format offers the best of both JPEG and GIF worlds, and the list goes on.

Although more and more people are creating digital images for the Web, many people are not concerned with the details of Web design. For instance:

Readers with text only browsers who just want to get their information quickly do not want to load images, they need to be able to navigate through your image links via the <ALT> tag.
Readers do not want to wait several minutes for images to load that they do not want to see.
Readers will not always use the latest browsers and as a Webmaster, you are severly limiting who your readers are if you choose to design using the latest or browser-specific tags.

There are millions of people surfing the Web. You will have the greatest readership if you follow simple guidelines for writing HTML code for the majority of browsers.