Working with Images

For an effective presentation of your products and your shop you need good images. We do not recommend you to use  huge logo files or giant product images. Keep in mind that people will not wait to see your site, or buy anything, if it takes your site too long to load.

Recommended image file formats:

• GIF - Graphics Interchange Format - pictures store single or multiple raster image data in 8-bit, or 256 colors. GIF pictures support transparency, compression, interlacing, and multiple-image pictures. GIF pictures are suitable for logos and animations.

• JPG - Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) - pictures store a single raster image in 24-bit color. JPEG is a platform-independent format that supports the highest levels of compression; however, this compression is lossy. JPG pictures are the best for photos and we recommend you to use this file format with quality "40" for your product pictures.

Getting the images

You can get images for your store from a lot of different sources.

You can:

• use a digital camera and take photos of  your products.

• use a usual camera to take photos of the products and scan the photos afterwards.

• scan photos from catalogues and user manuals.

• use pictures of a product which has supplementary CD.

• use pictures of the products some producers offer at their web sites.

Note. Your primary consideration should be that of ownership of the materials you are going to use. Copyright infringement is an important issue in Internet design. The use of other people's materials without their permission or without compensating them in some way may be considered a criminal activity. Copyright infringement, plagiarism, theft, misuse or misappropriation of intellectual property, inappropriate use of images -- the courts are full of these types of cases involving the Internet. If you have any doubts, ask permission BEFORE you use a graphic.

Getting the file ready for the web.

Whatever the source of image is, CD, digital camera, scanning, or Internet it is very likely you are going to have to reduce its size and resolution for web viewing. Using your image editor:

  1. Crop (as close as you can to the subject of the image).

  2. Resize (if necessary).

  3. Save as image (choose the appropriate file format GIF or JPG)

Tip: Always keep the original file for further use if necessary.