How can i get my background image down to a minimum K size fast load

[midi25]

Hi i,ve got a background image that i want to put on my site. Someone put in a post i posted on here last night,that background images should be kept around 5KB max. I have run my image through Paintshop and saved it as a JPEG and optimised it for the web. The image is 783x400 and 30Kb in size. It says on a 56kbs modem it should take 9secs to download.

When applied to my web page it isnt loading too fast.

Is there any way i can compress this image or someway i can get it down to a lesser kb size without loosing quality of course.

Are there any tools out there for picture compression.

I am using Dreamweaver - Photoshop 6 - Fireworks - Swish.

Thanks

[Nick_W]

Looks like you've done all you can. If you're not happy with it your best bet is to re-evaluate it's worth against the cost in download time.

Have you tried it as a gif?

Nick

[midi25]

yeah gif is coming out at 50kb so am going with jpeg. i,m just looking at these shareware jpeg compressors at the moment. they say they are ideal for web designers. do u have any experience of these?

[Nick_W]

No, none whatsover. But, I know that fireworks gets web images down pretty tight. I don't think you'll be able to do much more...

Nick

[midi25]

yeah i was thinking that. i,ve got one page down to 13kb as a jpeg medium quality. I just dont know how some websites have background images that load so fast yet still have good quality.

[Nick_W]

Well, once it's downloaded it's in the browser cache so users will only have to do it once...

Nick

[TallTroll]

Squeeze out those last few bytes with a JPEG Cleaner utility. There are several freeware ones out there.

They take out useless info that various packages insert (copyright info, colour table info, preview info etc)

I've seen a few cases where the one I use has squeezed several Kb out of an image. Do that to 3 or 4 images on a page, and you might reduce the image load on a given page by 20k or so, with NO quality implications at all

GIF cleaners exist also, although I find they tend not to be able to slim many images down, although some gifs do have comments embedded for instance, which you can junk with no impact on the quality. Freeware available also

[shanz]

Perhaps re-evaluate the importance of your background. For Example is it completely necessary for your page, remembering that your content is the most important part. For many sites I beleive the designer can get carried away with picture quality because they are closely examining thier own work In my experince the user will not be so critical. (Many exceptions to this of course.) I find a light blur on a background image before compression helps to get file size down an well as being pretty subtle.

[buckworks]

NetMechanic has good tools for reducing image file sizes, which I have used for both GIFs and JPEGs. Their system lets you see exactly what the tradeoffs will be in terms of file size savings vs. image quality so you can decide where the best balance is for your situation.

[martinibuster]

Also take into consideration that:

1) Sharpness/contrast increase file size and blurring the image cuts it down.

2) Removing color cuts down the file size. Analyze the colors that are in the pic, then go into image/adjust/hue-saturation and in the "edit" pull down menu, lower the saturation for a particular color, or lower the saturation for all of them. Remember, color adds to file size.

3)Gradients add greatly to file size. I had a silky drape effect background image that became too unwieldy to use, so I removed the drapery folds and kept the rich color.

Sometimes, we have to "suggest" instead of show.

Did I miss anything?

[edited by: martinibuster at 5:18 pm (utc) on July 1, 2002]

[tedster]

Midi25, you said you have Photoshop 6. Have you tried its "Save for the Web" setting?

That option launches the ImageReady software, which has killer algorithms for jpeg and gif compression. I haven't been able to beat them anywhere.

[midi25]

yeah thats what i am using. save for the web. i have got them down to 13kb so far. which isnt too bad. for a 783 x 400 image.

gonna try putting a little blur on them.

or may cut them up. and use a background colour with them.