Graphics

Graphics Graphics is very important, generally not very well understood, and often the mot difficult part of creating a web site.

• Clipart There are many places on the web to get great clipart, and there are many packages available to service every desire and need.
• Colors Your colors are important, and it's critical to know how the different browsers handle color.
• Fonts Fonts are important. A good choice of fonts makes your web site look great, and a bad choice makes it unusable.
  • What About Fonts? There are several things to know about fonts in order to use them correctly: fixed vs variable, serif or sans-serif, and kerning.
• Graphics Formats Use your intelligence to choose the correct graphics format for your web pages. You can use GIF, JPEG or the up-and-coming PNG formats.
  • Graphics Formats - BMP The BMP format is the most basic graphics format. It is also the most inefficient.
  • Graphics Formats - GIF The GIF format is an excellent format for many types of graphics.
  • Graphics Formats - Animated GIFs Use animated GIFs to create moving images on your web site. Just remember not to overdo it.
  • Graphics Formats - JPG JPG is best for images with gradients, blends and inconsistent color variants. It is very efficient but parts of the image are lost by the compression scheme.
  • Graphics Formats - PNG The PNG format is a newer, better format than GIF. It may soon be the dominant format on the internet.
• Graphics Utilities Here are some utilities that will help you use and design web graphics.
  • Graphics Editors In this section I've described some graphics editors which you might find useful.
    • Paint Shop Pro Paint Shop Pro is a great graphics editor.
      • Paint Shop Pro Picture Tubes Paint Shop Pro has the ability to use a cool feature called Picture Tubes. This makes creating unique graphics incredibly simple.
  • Animation Utilities If you need to edit or create animation for your web pages, here are some utilities that may help.
  • Graphics Optimization Graphics optimization is an important part of creating and maintaining your web site. You can increase the odds that your visitors don't hit the back key by reducing load times.
  • Cool Tools Want some cool graphics utilities? Here is the place to find them!
    • Cool Tools - Omatic This service allows you to create graphic ribbons (and other things) for your web site.
• Graphics Plug-Ins There are many plug-ins available which will make your pages look great, but may annoy your visitors.