Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 17. Email and the Web
Printing photos is great, but it costs money, takes time, and doesn't do much to instantly im-
press your faraway friends. And to many people, printing is just so 20th century. Fortunately,
Elements comes packed with tools that make it easy to prep your photos for onscreen view-
ing and to email them in a variety of crowd-pleasing ways. (In Elements 13, emailing got a
major makeover, making it easier to send photos using any email program.) This chapter ex-
plains your options.
Image Formats and the Web
Back in the Web's early days, making graphic files small was important because most Inter-
net connections were as slow as snails. Nowadays, file size isn't as crucial; your main obliga-
tion when creating graphics for the Web is ensuring they're compatible with the web
browsers people use to view them. That means you'll probably want to use either of the two
most popular image formats, JPEG or GIF, though PNG is also an option:
▪
JPEG
(Joint Photographic Experts' Group) is the most popular choice for images with
lots of details, and for ones where you need smooth color transitions. Photos are almost
always posted on the Web as JPEGs.
TIP
JPEGs can't have transparent areas, although there's a workaround for that: Fill the
background around the image with the same color as the web page you want to post it
on. That way, the background blends into the web page, giving the impression that
the object is surrounded by transparency. See
Figure 17-4
(
Save for Web Format and
Quality Options
) for details on this trick.
