Getting the best quality web photos.

[CharlieMcD]

Some photo sites contain very clean images while others (even from excellent photographers) have really bad image quality. I have to imagine that the original images were crisp and detailed. What does it take to produce detailed web images? Now I know that heavily compressed images will have much poorer quality. Is there something else, however, that I'm missing? If I have a 4" wide image at 288 dpi (which is 1152 pixels wide) and I put my contraints for putting the image on my web page at 288 pixels wide (4" at 72 dpi) is that better because it will compress and maintain detail while displaying on the web page or is it better to make the 4" wide shot 288 pixels in the beginning? I hope I am being clear with my explanation and questions.
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CharlieMcD

If there's no passion in life - there's no life!

 

[bruce komusin]

Sometimes you will need a 288-pixel-wide image, and sometimes it'll be 15 other sizes. There's no way you can get a digicam that captures images in all those sizes, so forget about taking the picture small to begin with. Take all your pictures at largest pixel size of digicam and resample them smaller for web use.

Assuming you are not using gif images for web (not enough colors for true photos) and not png (too enormous in size, byte-wise) then you have to use jpg for web. In that case, quality is determined by the amount of compression you choose to use. Photoshop has "save for web" command that allows you to choose different compressions and see what the results will be before you save. Choose the quality and compression you like, always keeping in mind that better quality will force user to wait longer to see your photo since it will be larger in bytes and thus longer to transmit over the web. If delay is too long, user may simply give up in disgust and go somewhere else.

-bruce

Some photo sites contain very clean images while others (even from
excellent photographers) have really bad image quality. I have to
imagine that the original images were crisp and detailed. What
does it take to produce detailed web images? Now I know that
heavily compressed images will have much poorer quality. Is there
something else, however, that I'm missing? If I have a 4" wide
image at 288 dpi (which is 1152 pixels wide) and I put my
contraints for putting the image on my web page at 288 pixels wide
(4" at 72 dpi) is that better because it will compress and maintain
detail while displaying on the web page or is it better to make the
4" wide shot 288 pixels in the beginning? I hope I am being clear
with my explanation and questions.
--
CharlieMcD

If there's no passion in life - there's no life!