Re: [Gimp-user] Web development question?

[Xiella Harksell <xiesse gmail com>]

On 17 February 2012 09:55, Steve Kinney <admin pilobilus net> wrote:
> PNG is a lossless format, so unless you are saving a lot of giant
> images and run short of time, there is no reason to dial back the
> compression from the default "9".
>
> On 02/16/2012 03:18 PM, Daniel Smith wrote:
>
> > I am looking to create some web pages with drupal.
> > Can anyone tell me their process they use to do
> > a similar goal? (With drupal or WP, etc.) What I'm thinking
> > is that certain of the settings are compatible or not with
> > the blogging engine or not? do you use png or jpeg?, etc.
>
> I usually use jpg format for nearly all web images, because
> comparable images saved in png normally have larger file sizes.  The
> most potentially interesting feature of png is that it saves
> transparency, and *nearly* all web browsers now in use understand
> how to display png images with transparent areas.  If you need a
> transparent background, and you need higher resolution or better
> scalability than the gif format provides, png might be your answer.
> Others may know uses for png that I am not aware of, but so far I
> have found no use for it in web design.
>
> In re transparency, most of the time you will not need it.  If you
> load the page under construction in a web browser and use the
> eyedropperin the GIMP foreground/background color tool, you can set
> the exact value to make an opaque part of your image match the page
> background exactly.

As a point of difference :)

I find myself tending to save the majority of my images (in terms of
developing the site - stripes, decorations, non-content stuff) as
PNGs.

Firstly, I make most of my images from scratch using minimal numbers
of colours to minimise load time anyway so the PNG is almost
invariably a lighter weight option.  For larger pieces such as
banners, photos, avatars, artwork, anything with lots of different
colours, I would probably use JPG.

On the transparency front, I find PNG a huge benefit over GIF.  The
obvious example is for logos/decorative images - GIFs do not have
alpha transparency, a major issue for any shape other than a
rectangle.  Another benefit to using PNGs in websites is being able to
make interesting and lightweight blocks of colour combinations using
repeat-xy backgrounds of semi-transparent images.  eg a 1px black
image at 20% transparency, etc.  I think the last time I saved
anything in GIF was for a favicon...

Xiella