How can I optimize my photos for the web? I want them to be load quickly and be sharp.

Saturday, 26 June 2010 15:54 Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 September 2011 13:46

Having photos or graphics on your website is a great way to bring your site to life. Unfortunately, it is also a great way to slow your site down if not done the right way!

There are 6 things you need to do:

Save Graphics as 'Gif' files and Photos as 'jPg' files
'Crop' your photos/graphics so that you remove unnecessary parts
Reduce the image size to the final display size (e.g. 600x400 pixels)
Compress JPG to 80-95% of the original
Restrict GIF files to 16 colours where possible
Save GIF as 'Interlacing' and JPG as 'Progressive' for faster web display

Your imaging software may not do all of these things but do what you can.
If you have many images to resize then I recommend Fotosizer. It is FREE and will do all your images at once. It is also easy to use!