Images for Internet use

This post is a checklist/guideline for reducing the size of your images for use on the internet. This includes emailing images to others or putting them on a web site.

Images that are too large will take much longer to load, even with a hi-speed connection. They'll also have interpolation artifacts from the browsers too, instead of presenting pixels to the viewer at 1:1.

A. Existing Image(s) (from a camera for ex.) For Direct CorelDRAW exports, go to section B.

1. Open with Photo-PAINT.

2. Crop & color-correct the image.

3. Now, I'll often over-write the original. Chances are huge that I'll never need an uncropped, un color-corrected version of this image ever again. I want to save now since it preserves the remaining pixels of the original file (there's no mushiness as the image hasn't been up or downsampled). People say: Jeff, "storage is cheap". I say, "Keep the originals if you want. I don't want the originals after fixing them. That's why I fixed them."

4. Choose Image | Resample. For large images, keep the longest dimension at 800 pixels so that you understand what's happening. Keep the aspect ratio/proportions.

5. Sharpen the image using Effects | Sharpen | Adaptive Unsharp. Try a setting of 50. This restores some detail that was lost during downsampling.

6. Export as a new file name to a location of your choice - but choose the format based on colors in the file;

6A . If less than 256 colors, choose GIF (important: use optimized palette, none for dithering.) Simple artwork, logos, lineart, cartoons...

6B. If a photograph or more than 256 discreet colors, choose JPG.

Check: Optimize
Sub Format 4:4:4
Compression 10-20
Smoothing 10

You should now have a excellent file on disk that you can email or put onto a web page.

B. Export the artwork directly from CorelDRAW

1. Export as a new file name to a location of your choice.

Choose the format based on colors in your CoreDRAW file:

1A . If less than 256 colors, choose GIF (important: use optimized palette, none for dithering.) Simple artwork, logos, lineart, cartoons...

1B. If a photograph or more than 256 discreet colors, choose JPG.

Check: Optimize
Sub Format 4:4:4
Compression 10-20
Smoothing 10

keep the longest dimension at 800 pixels so that you understand what's happening for now. Keep the aspect ratio/proportions.

You should now have a excellent file on disk that you can email or put onto a web page.