Chapters 9,10 & 12

Chapter 9 was a good review on color and the differences between CMYK (printing) and RGB (monitors/video).It’s very important to use the RGB mode when posting on the web or when the image is being view on a TV/LCD/monitor. Also, CMYK is a reflective color model and RGB is not.

Some things to keep in mind when creating web pages:

1. Use color effectively by using creating contrasts – however this may take a little experience to master this.
2. Use indexing when manipulating images to save space.
3. Don’t over do it when using images. Use a good combination of ppi and color quality to post to your web page. Usually images should be between 72 or 96 ppi and should be able to display in a browser-safe color – although many newer monitors support more than an 8-bit display.
4. If possible, crop images to reduce image size.
   
5. For photo images, use the .jpg format and play with quality to see what works best.
6. For banners or pictures with flat colors, use the .gif format to save the image, and also play with the quality to see what looks the best without having a huge file.

Chapter 10 went over the different file types to use on web pages, and what the advantages and disadvantages were. It discussed the importance of using the right image and how important it was to know about files sizes and how it impacts the viewing of a web page. It also gave good tips on how to make a web page better by:

• using anti-aliasing for better/smoother images
• adding thumbnails, so the person doesn’t have to download a larger image if they don’t want to
• using image maps (a graphic with links on it) so that people with a slow internet connection can navigate the site easily
• adding alternate labels to show graphics will be displayed (also helpful for people with slow internet connections

Note: A common mistake by people is to take digital pictures with a high mega pixel camera, and then to send it to a friend or post it to a web site before compressing the image. This is not good practice, since in many cases email filters will block these large image files. And if the picture is posted to a website or blog, it could take a long time for someone to view the picture. It is good practice to compress the image to a size that will allow the person to view the image in a timely manner, while still getting a "quality" image that looks good.

Chapter 12 went over how important it is to ensure that your web site is easy to read and legible. This is all done by choosing the proper type of font, font size, a font that is cross -platform, and knowing how the web page will appear on various browsers and OSs.

Cascading Style Sheets is quite interesting, and although I'm not sure that I completely understand it, it seems like it's very powerful. I believe that it's used by web designer to easily apply formatting to an entire web site or just individual pages on a web site. I guess it's kind of like a template. It can apply default browser styles, imported styles, linked styles, embedded styles, and inline styles. This form of "programming" can really simplify the tweaking of a web page.