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A picture may be worth a thousand words... but not if it takes forever to download.

• THE 50K RULE: Many visitors still surf using a modem. Some even use a 28.8 Kbs or a 14.4 Kbs mode, so think in terms of total download size when designing your site. Add the size of your HTML file to all your images (and anything else you refer to). You definitely want your total to be less than 50K.
• GIF VS. JPEG: GIFs work better for line art and other graphics with limited colors and sharp edges. JPEGs work better for photographs with lots of colors and smooth gradients. If your image size is to big (see rule above) consider reducing the pixel depth (in a GIF) or reducing the amount of compression (in a JPEG). This will make the GIF look dithered and the JPEG blurry, but the size can be reduced significantly (to reduce the pixel-depth or compression, you need an image-editing program such as Photoshop)
• GIVE ME A BREAK: Remember to Break and Clear All ( <Br Clear="All"> ) after you've wrapped text around an image.
• SNEAK PREVIEW: Always include the height and width attributes when using the image tag ( <Img> ). The browser will then lay out the page before the images fully load. If you use the Alternate Attribute as well ( ALT= ), you can enter text descriptions of your images so that your visitor knows what's coming before it get's displayed. It's also a good idea to write your image's size in the Alternate Attribute, so that the user can decide for himself if the image is worth the download.

 

 

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