Without graphics the web would be a pretty boring place. Sure, you could still convey your message in plain text but it wouldn't be very exciting and there would be nothing to make your website stand out visually from all the others. Take this site for example; everything you see above the time and date stamp is graphical. The orange bar, the background, the picture of Deegie and me, and the main navigation links to the left of our picture, are all graphical (click HERE for more about website design).

There are basically two graphic formats that are widely used on the web: JPEG and GIF. Both are well suited for the web. Their compression makes them small and fast loading.

The JPEG (or JPG) format is great for photos because it can incorporate millions of colors. That means your photos will retain most of their color and will look great on the web. JPEG files use "lossy" compression which means redundant or unneeded colors are discarded. When done correctly this is not perceptible to the human eye (click HERE for more on using photos).

GIF graphics are best used for icons, line drawings and other graphics created with graphics programs. They incorporate fewer colors than JPEG files (256 or less), can have a transparent background, and can be animated. GIF files do not use lossy compression so all colors are retained.

Even though both formats work well on the web you don't want to have too many on each page. The more graphics on a page, the longer it takes to download them. Remember, everything you view from the web must first be downloaded to your computer so we always want to take that into consideration when using graphics on the web.

return to previous page