Images

Images use GIF, JPEG or PNG formats/

GIFs support transparency for a particular selected colour. A completely transparent GIF can be created as a spacer or element useful for layouts. GIF is a good format for images with large areas of flat colour and/or illustrative work.

Animated GIFs can be used to provide movement to a page, but they should not be over-used.

JPEGs are best suited for photographs and images with colour gradients.

PNGs area a relatively new image format and can be used for both photographic and flat colour style of images. Less browses support the display of these images, but these days they are perfectly acceptable to all but the oldest installations.

Although your rich text editor may allow resizing of the image within the editor you should never do this. Images should be created at the required dimensions that they will use within the layout of the web page. By creating an image with the correct size for its use on the page, the user does not have to download extra kilobytes and the image will not be distorted by the browser attempting to resize the image on the fly.