I am a photographer and am creating a new website. Should I use my high resolution images or standard resolution. I know high res takes up more space right? But, does that matter on a website. I want the best images I can get.
I would put the photos onto the site in standard format, fast loading, but make them clickable with an indication of how heavy they are. That I find the most polite solution. It also keeps people in your site.
Also, depending on your subject matter, you may not want to post full-res images because of the risk of people stealing them.
tjh
Somewhere between 10 and 40k is a good file size for photos intended for web use. Any bigger and the page will take too long to download. You only need to provide higher resolution versions for printing.
[FONT=“Georgia”]Strictly speaking…
His “resolution” doesn’t matter… remember all resolution comes down to on a computer screen is how many pixels wide by how many high.
As for your “quality” (or your compression) this depends on what the image is and what it’s being used for…
Your thumbnails can be very compressed (if you’re using .jpegs then drop it down to about 30 - 50 % quality) so that they’d load up quickly.
Then your full-size photos can be much greater quality (maybe 80 - 100 %).[/FONT]
[FONT=“Georgia”]Also if you’re using Photoshop, I suggest using their “Save for Web” feature for two reasons…
1.
“Save for Web” saves .jpg’s minus all the excess meta-data and colour-profiles and all that tra la la. This therefore makes the file smaller.
2.
Also you can save your .jpg’s as “progressive” meaning that when it’s loading on a viewer’s computer they’d instantly see a large blurry place holder of your image that gradually gets sharper as the image loads.
This is opposed to “optimised” .jpg’s that are smaller but load from the top down (or the bottom up). This isn’t always the effect you want to achieve when someone is viewing your site.
“Graceful degradation” after all. ;)[/FONT]
If you’re a photographer, you might want to consider watermarking your images too, especially on any high-res versions.
[FONT=“Georgia”]On “high-res” (print-size) versions, yes.
I still don’t really see the point of water-marking anything smaller, especially if it’s really compressed, because there’s not much someone can do with it in my opinion.
There’s a short thread about that too.
You can draw your own conclusions, journeybay.[/FONT]
Ah you’d be surprised! Alot of people can rip anything from a 100x100 to a 3200X3200 image; size matters not!
Unfortunately, if those who choose to rip want to, they can use any image to their advantage!
[FONT=“Georgia”]Something 3200 px square would be print size, Modmedia.
What I’m talking about are small images… 400 px or less. There’s not a lot someone can do with that.
You can Photoshop it and use if for web, maybe, but that’s it. That’s WAAAY too small to print.[/FONT]
At 400 px, they would be too small to print, but you’ll still want to protect them as much as possible from being used without permission online. If you remember the Getty/Corbis discussions from a while back on Sitepoint, one of the claims made by the site owners who were targeted by Getty/Corbis was that the companies didn’t protect the images with copyright symbols and therefore the website owners felt that they were OK to use. Right or wrong, at this point, I would recommend you don’t use high resolution images and you watermark them. You might also consider embedding meta information in the photos as well using Lightroom. There’s some talk by the way that Save for the Web strips meta data so consider alternatives.
[FONT=“Georgia”]As far as I’m concerned, the 'net is open pasture.
If you want to post images online you need to accept that risk of them getting stolen.
There is no 100% way to protect them… even if you embed them in a Flash movie or stretch a transparent .png over them someone can still screen-shot them or pull them from the browser cache.
Water-marks can be removed (I know I’ve removed my share) and photographer credits can easily be cropped out.
Taking steps to prevent having your image stolen can make it difficult for someone to use your image… but it will never be impossible.
The same way when you leave your house and go into the streets you’re in public domain… likewise when you post images on any website you need to realise that you’re putting your property into a public space.
If the risks are too much for you then don’t.[/FONT]
It depends on what your goal is. If you just want to demonstrate samples of your work in business like style, then use small heavily watermarked images. Usually those are enough to understand what your work is about. If you post image for enjoyment by viewers (and not concerned as much about stealing) then post larger images.
Most web content is still protected by copyright laws (despite what some people think) but you still need to be able to find anyone stealing your content and be prepared to take them to court if necessary if you do find them. Low res and watermarking should deter at least inadvertent theft making it easier to prove that the person knew that they were stealing when they took your image.
I will use the standard resolution,beacuse many people have not a fast network speed.If you want use high resoltution,you had better use the thumbnail.