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Using Graphics for Web Page

Gif stands for Graphic Interchange Format contains maximum 256 colors. This is the best option for line art and the images with prominent solid colors. One of the main features of this format is the transparent background facility. The image background can be made transparent and placed on another background to merge the two images. This format also supports animation. Gif animation can be the safest choice for small buttons or cartoons. This is the format people generally prefer for the images with no gradation. Web objects like buttons or the banners with 2-3 solid colors or the text headings made with single colors can be saved in Gif format.

Jpeg (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is the best choice for smooth color tone full color photographs as the format supports 16 million colors. It reduces the huge size photographs to considerably lesser size that can be uploaded and seen on the web.

Using graphics on the web page increases the downloading time of the page hence you need to be careful about the size of the graphic. Even while saving image in the above format you can save it tactfully to lesser the size and still keep the quality of the image intact. Software like Photoshop gives you the option to select number of colors while saving the image in Gif. Let us say you have design a simple banner with single color background and the text with different color. This image will have just two solid colors. You have made up your mind to save this image into Gif format and obviously that is the best available option in this case. Photoshop still offer you to save this image using all 256 colors and you have used just 2 colors. So you can reduce the number of colors while saving this banner to minimize the size of the file. This can be further explained with the following example.

This is Gif image using 256 colors having the file size of 2.02 KB

The same banner saved in Gif again but with 8 colors and the file size is 1.601 KB

Let us understand the saving options and the economy of the file size using Jpeg format.

This is the image saved with Maximum option, Quality 100, file size 136.7 KB

We are gradually going for lower options to minimize the size of file. The image is saved with Very High option, Quality 80, file size 52.27 KB

This is the image saved with High option, Quality 60, file size 28.91 KB

This is the image saved with Medium option, Quality 30, file size 13.91 KB

This is the image saved with Low option, Quality 10, file size 8.919 KB

You can observe the quality of the image with respect to the economy of the file size and make the choice for your web graphics.