It is important to optimise every image for web design and also html email newsletters.

What does optimise mean?

To achieve maximum efficiency and optimum results. By optimising your images for use in web design and html newsletters means reducing the file size to reach the best outcome for the reader / end user.

Why optimise images for Web Design and HTML Newsletters?

If you have lots of images that have large file sizes,  your website or email will take a long time to load – and let’s face it no-one wants to wait – your most likely going to have your customers ignore your website or your email without reading it.

Some email servers will even reject emails with large image sizes labelling them as spam so the email never reaches the inbox.

It’s all about getting the right balance between file-size and picture quality.

As a rule images should not go over 150kb as an absolute maximum and you should aim for them to be under 30kb (ultimately around 10kb if possible).

What type of images should be used on the web and in emails?

Jpeg (.jpg) is best for photographic images and .gif for drawn graphics. You can also use .png however this will often result in larger file-size. Images for email and for the web should be RGB colour formatting and 72dpi resolution.

Imaging programs such as Photoshop and Fireworks offer a great ‘save for web’ feature enabling you to scale the reduction of the images and visually view the results. Of course not everyone knows how to use (or has the budget to purchase) such advanced imaging software, fortunately there are many great free imaging programs available online.

Here are some great free to use advanced imaging editors:

http://www.splashup.com/splashup/ A powerful online image editor similar to Photoshop.

http://www.gimp.org/ A powerful GNU Image Manipulation Program.

To techy to understand? Try using the easy to use tools listed below, they have less flexibility with options but make optimising much easier.

http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/imageoptimizer/ just browse for the image on your computer, and click convert to – choose jpeg for photo images and gif or png for graphics.

http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspx You can use the online editor or download a copy to use on your computer.  This is a simple to use program just follow the instructions provided (works on PC only).

There are many great tutorials on image optimisation available on the web, so try a quick google search if you need more information.