Working with images on Maine Communities Online

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Working with images on your site

Adding photos, illustrations or other graphics to you web site is one sure way to give it pizazz. If you have any of these images and you would like to use them on your site, you must first convert them to digital format. This can be done in a number of ways.

Scanners are becoming more affordable these days. You might consider purchasing a scanner for as little as $100 and scanning photos and other graphics yourself.
You can use a specialized photo service like Seattle Filmworks or PhotoNet to process your film or negatives.
Finally, often times your local photo store or photo department will offer transferring your photos onto a diskette as well as prints.

Digital cameras can take photographs which load directly into your computer — converting them to digital format is a step you don't even have to think about. Inexpensive digital cameras can cost as little as $250.

If you're short on photos and other graphics you have a couple other options. Many computer centers sell photos and graphics on diskette or CD ROM. The web is also a good source of images — many free of charge. Check below for a list of sites to find images you can use on your site.

Some important points to consider when using images on your Maine Communities Online website

Use only image files which have been saved in GIF or JPEG format (*.gif and *.jpg)
If you're having an image scanned, you'll need to ask for GIF or JPEG format. If you're converting or editing images yourself, you'll need to make sure you're using an image editor which can save in one of these formats. Any good image editor has lots of features like image conversion, resize, color correction, screen capture, and the option to save a file in multiple formats. Take a look at the list of image editors for Mac and Windows '95 at TUCOWS, one of several good software sites on the web.

Keep your images small (less than 14K and 300 x 300 pixels) and few to a page.
Most people on the Internet are using 14.4K or 28.8K modems. The fastest connection with a 28.8K modem is about 3K per second. Imagine your site logo is 42K, and there are 5 articles on the site's homepage. 4 of those articles have graphics that take up 30K each.

That means the site's homepage takes about 54 seconds to load the images, or maybe as much as 3+ minutes if it's a slow connection or the visitor uses a 14.4K modem.

Try to keep the total size of graphics on a page to something under 60K. Most people will wait 30 seconds, but few will wait more than a minute or two.

Can't see the "browse" button to upload an image?
To assist you with this problem, we've set up a page of instructions.

Keep the dimensions of graphics as small as possible.
Most people have 14" monitors with a scree resolution of 640x480. You don't want to make your graphics so big that they can't be seen. A good rule of thumb is to make pictures no more than 250 pixels in height or width. If you use a "banner" log, use the Internet-standard size of 468 (wide) by 60 (high).

Use pixel dimensions for an image.
Try to enter the dimensions of the graphic when posting a picture. (Underneath the browse button on content posting areas, there will be a place to input the height and width of the image) This permits the browser to "save a space" for the image, and continue loading text. That way, your visitors can see parts of the page without having to wait for all the graphics to be loaded first.

Stock Photography, graphics and other web-ready images

It's easy to find and use web-ready art. The Web itself is a great source for art. Most images or graphics on the Web can be easily copied to your local hard drive, just check your browser's help files for information on how to do it.

It's important to remember that certain art on the Web is copyrighted or is otherwise protected. Please take care to not upload copyrighted art to your web site.

There are also cd-roms available that have non-copyrighted clipart. Although you usually have to pay for these, you can get literally thousands of images for as low as $20. You might also check to see if any of the software you have installed on your machine already has clipart bundled with it.

Here are a few good sources for free art on the web:

freeimages.com (especially "From Granny's Attic")
Cool Graphics on the Web
Debby's Gif Animation Page
Tudogs: Free Clipart
Barry's Clip Art Server
Free Web Graphics

And some sources of images for a cost:

For a little reading material regarding images, see the NetGuide Photography Special and ZDNet's Keys to Successful Scanning.

Design tips and tricks

Put your best foot forward
You want your site to attract new members, and that only happens if they like what they see. Take the time to think about how your web site is organized. Use images and photos to tell your story. If visitors like what they see, your site will continue to grow.

Know your audience
Begin by figuring out what sort of people will be interested in your web site. >Plan the content of your site according to the visitors you want to attract. Identify those things that will be most interesting to the people that visit your site.

Be consistent
Use your group's logo to help visitors identify each page as part of the web site.

Put important information first
Try to include at least 3 of the following things in the first paragraph of your posting: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. You can then use the rest of the article to get the other 2, or give more details on the first 3.

Brevity is the secret to a successful web site!
Most people would much rather read a short article of three paragraphs rather than a report of 5,000 words. Edit before you post a new article or item to the site's web site. Then, more people are likely to read what you wrote. If a large amount of factual information is necessary, put that data on a separate page that people can find if they're interested, not in the article itself. Try to keep your pages fairly short. About 3 full screens of information is a good rule of thumb. If it gets longer than that, it's a better idea to have a new page.

Don't...
...Clutter the page. If you need more space, make more pages rather than making one really long one. Shorter pages are easier to read, and easier to find the article you need.

...Bury important information. Most readers don't get beyond the 3rd to 5th paragraphs in an article. Keep all your important information at the very beginning of your article.

...Overuse bold and italics. A good rule of thumb is that no more than 3 things should be emphasized (bold OR italics) on a page. If you have more than 3 items, review the items and see if they're really that important. Remember: if everything is bold, nothing is emphasized.