What picture type best for web?

[Mark]

What is the best picture type file to use with 3dcart?
I've been using jpg, but, I'm not sure this is best. I am looking for a balance of size for download and page loading balanced with resolution and picture quality. Image quality being the priority. I'm aware of png, gif and jpeg, and apparently a few others, but not sure the professional way to go here. Seems my thumbnails look a little fuzzy compared to other sites.

[mueller]

For photographs GIF is usually the way to go and JPG is good for images with a limited number of colors/shading. I like PNG but not all of the old browsers still in use properly handle these images.

If your thumbnails are the only problem you may want to try resizing them yourself and uploading instead of having 3DC do it for you.

[Mark]

I only really do product images. I use photoshop "elements" (although it's an old version2) and size my jpg images to 450X450 and 150X150 and upload to 3d. I then choose both the 1 image and thumbnail for each product. What's happening is, the thumbs and full size are like 60-80K. So, I end up resizing with 3Dcart editor. this cuts out quite a bit of bandwidth usage and pages load faster. Not sure what compression level in photoshop elements in order to accomplish the same thing. I think a new approach I will use is set the defaults in 3dcart to allow 450 height and 150 height (image1 and thumbnail respectively) on the images and allow for plenty of width so that 3d doesn't resize to the width prior to height, which was what was happening, making all my images different heights.

[MissHTML]

Originally Posted by mueller

For photographs GIF is usually the way to go and JPG is good for images with a limited number of colors/shading. I like PNG but not all of the old browsers still in use properly handle these images.

If your thumbnails are the only problem you may want to try resizing them yourself and uploading instead of having 3DC do it for you.

Actually, it's the other way around. For photographs TIF or PNG are the best with jpg coming in third. The worst choice for photographs would be gif's since 256 color GIF is very limited color, and is a larger file than 24 bit JPG.

[cekman]

Are all browsers able to view .tif? Is there a major size difference between .tif and .jpg?

I've always used .jpg just because that's what I always did - would love to get better quality for same or less bandwidth if that's an option.

TIA

[bristweb]

depends what you are doing

if you are working with your site design, PNG and GIF are great for simple graphics, plus they have transparency.

if you want to display product photos, then definitely JPG.


it is important to understand compression and how it affects file size vs quality. photoshop will show you exactly what the result will be so you can determine optimal compression for each photo.

[mueller]

Originally Posted by MissHTML

Actually, it's the other way around. For photographs TIF or PNG are the best with jpg coming in third. The worst choice for photographs would be gif's since 256 color GIF is very limited color, and is a larger file than 24 bit JPG.

Sorry about that, the old dyslexia kicking in. I personally have never heard of anyone using TIF in a site since it is huge and JPG is generally high enough quality. I do like PNG from spending so much time in Fireworks which is PNG native, but I have been frustrated too many times dealing with the less than stellar implementation of PNG on the older versions of IE still in heavy use.

I imagine that if someone was an artist or something of that nature and required the highest resolution possible they may need TIF, but even then I am not sure it would be warranted. The only time I work with a TIF is for items going to press.