Images

Finding or creating images

If you want to include images on your web page, either to illustrate an idea, as decoration, or as part of the site design, you'll need to either create your own or find some existing images.

There are several ways you can create your own images:

• Take photos. If you've got access to a digital camera, it's even easier as you can just download the photos to your computer without having to scan them in. You can also take as many photos as you need to until you get the one you want. You can buy a simple digital camera for under £30 these days
• Draw or paint pictures. Don't worry if you can't draw very well. Do everything at a much larger size and reduce it down on the computer. You can even touch up any mistakes, or colour them in in an image editor.
• Create graphics in an image editor. Using a vector drawing program like Adobe Illustrator or a photo editing program like Photoshop, you can easily create high quality artwork. You can use a photo, a font, or a simple drawing as a starting point and modify it to your heart's content.

If you want to use some existing imagery, there are also several options:

• Search online. You can search for images on any search engine just as you would for a webpage. Google has a dedicated and comprehensive image search. Be aware of the copyright restrictions. You can't just lift an image off someone's web page unless you have their permission.
• Buy some royalty-free stock photography. You can buy massive multi-CD box sets full of photos and clip art at most computer stores. 'Royalty-free' means that you are allowed to use the images however you like without asking anyone's permission, or paying any more money. The cost; as low as £30 for a set. The catch? The quality of the images is often not very good and you'd be surprised how even given 10,000 photos you often can't find what you're looking for.

The simple truth is that with imagery, you get what you pay for. Your best bet is to do it yourself!

Optimisation

There's a step between creating (or finding) your images and putting them on your page and this is called optimisation. You actually have to do a number of things to your images to get them into the right format for the web. Here are the basics:

1. Get it looking right. Make sure the colours are how you want them, the image is the right size, and you've cropped off any unwanted bits. Remember, the smaller your images, the quicker they'll be to download.
2. Choose a format. Generally speaking, you'll want to use JPEG for photos, or complex graphics and GIF for logos, or graphics with transparent backgrounds or large areas of flat colour.
3. Compress. The key to compression is getting the right compromise between file size (and hence speed) and quality. The best thing to do is to experiment with different settings and see what works for each image.