Image Size - Help

[madcat]

Hi:

I have a background image that I'd like to span 1600px wide. It's actually 1600 X 1200. All content will go over that image...

The best I can get files size down to is around 200K.

Is there anyway else to reduce the size of this image without comprimising quality?

I've seen sites that use one background image and it stays the same for every resolution, how can I do that?

Thanks for any help.

M

[rickwells]

There are a number of things you can do. First, would the image be okay in GIF fornat or does it have to be JPEG.
You are likely to get a smaller file size with the gif compression options.
Does the image have an area around the edges which is a plain colour. You could crop the image and ensure that the surround colour was flat ie exactly the same colour all round. Then position the image centre in your design and set it against a page background colour which matches.
Finally, I would suggest you look at the "weighted Optimization" facility in Adobe Imageready. It allows you to select areas within the image which can be given a 'minimum quality' compression setting whilst keeping the important elements at good quality. Here's a tutorial which demonstrates this procedure.http://simplephotoshop.com/imageready_tutorials/weighted_optimizationf.htm
I believe you can also do this in Fireworks and possibly other applications.