Creating High Quality Web Graphics

Since computer monitors have such low resolution compared to print, pictures on the web can't possibly display the same level of detail as the originals. In order to ensure your graphics look the absolute best they can on your site, it's important to send your designer pictures of the highest quality possible. The old maxim of "garbage in, garbage out" could have been written about pictures on the web.

If you can afford a professional photographer, use one. If not, use special care in taking your photos. Place your subject in from of an uncluttered background, make sure the lighting is even and use a tripod. If you are shooting indoors under fluorescent lights use a flash that compensates for the green tint you will otherwise have. Take lots of exposures and get duplicates made if they are prints. Never send your only copy through the mail.

If you give your web designer a photo that needs a color imbalance adjusted, a background removed or cleaned up or extra retouching done, plan on being charged extra for these services. Taking it correctly in the first place will save you money and result in a better image on the screen.

Digital Camera Issues

Many digital cameras are preset to compress their pictures so that more can be made to fit into memory at a time. This is a handy feature for a lot of purposes, but if you're going to use a digital image on your web site, it's best to turn off that compression. You won't be able to get as many pictures into your camera's memory, but each one will be of the highest quality your camera can achieve.

One way to tell if the picture has been compressed is to look at the extension placed at the end of the name. Uncompressed photos will usually be TIFF files and will end in .tif (e.g. "my_photo.tif). Photos are usually compressed using JPEG compression, so the name might look like "my_photo.jpg). Every time a photo is compressed some data is lost that can never be recovered. If you send your designer a JPEG photo, it will still be too large to download quickly into your web site and so will have to be compressed again, leading to even more loss of quality.

What About Logos?

If you had your logo professionally done, the graphic artist probably has the original image. If you can have that version sent in you will give your designer a lot more flexibility in enhancing it for use on the web. A professionally created logo was probably built up in separate layers which can be manipulated individually for best effect. Once again it's an issue of using the highest quality original possible.

If you created your own logo, open it in the program it was made in and see if you can save it as a TIFF or EPS (.eps) file. If it was created in a paint program you may only be able to save it as a BMP (.bmp) file. This may work fine if the original size is close to the size you need on the web. If it needs to be enlarged or made smaller, you may notice a large drop in quality.

Logos with thin lines or delicate fonts can look beautiful in print, but may start to break up on a computer monitor. That's because you can get 300 or more dots of ink per inch in a print, but only 72 pixels (the computer equivalent of dots) per inch on screen, so the level of detail is at least four times as great when printed.

In conclusion, remember that computer monitors will degrade your images because of their low resolution, so for best results always start with the highest quality images you can.