Forum skin image question...

[Galaphile]

Hey,
I'm developing a skin for Invision Power Board, and I'm bordering the forums with images. Right now, the border images total to 42.8 KB at 128 colors. At 64 colors, the total image size drops to 35.7 KB. The change is slightly noticable, but the quality isn't too bad. I would like to keep it at 128 colors, but I'm wondering is 42.8 KB is too much for a border. (The border has 8 seperate images) What should I do?

Thanks

[Span]

Depending on how much light or dark colors I use high q 350 x 450 jpg images between 20 and 32 Kb.

So I think 42.8 Kb is way to much for just a border.

[Galaphile]

So would 35kb be more reasonable? If I lowered the colors anymore, the quality would be horrible. I'll go for the 64 color one, then. Thanks.

[Span]

Well, what if you use jpg instead of gif? Could make a difference of over 20Kb.

[Galaphile]

Wow..I didn't even think of JPEG. Thanks for the suggestion. I got it down to 28.4 KB now. Should I lower the quality a bit more?

[Span]

In my experience, using Photoshop and the Save for Web plug-in, you can easily save almost any picture as 30-40% quality while they're still looking very good. It depends though. But background images for borders are tiny pictures right? Just lower the quality as far as possible (without distortion). It saves bandwidth and the pages will load faster - important for a board.

[Galaphile]

They aren't that tiny...it's a themed skin, so the graphics match the theme of a game. The left/right borders are about 40 or so pixels wide. I'll try to compress it more, but I don't want the 'JPEG squares', and since the border is pretty wide, it'll be noticable.