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| Author | Jocelyn Toolie Garner |
| Title | Organizing Your Website and Blog Images |
| Category | Logos, Images, Photos |
| Article |
When you work on your websites, it's important to keep your photos and graphics organized so you can effectively use them. Here are some techniques to help you. 1) Put the original files in a safe place. If you take your own photographs, store the originals on a hard drive that gets backed up regularly, or on a high-quality CD or DVD. Do the same thing for stock images you download from the Internet. Also keep a copy of the licensing agreement for those stock images with the files. I like to print the licensing agreement and a copy of the receipt to PDF and save those files with the image. 2) Work with copies of those originals, but every time you resample (shrink) a photo to be used in a website, start with the biggest size and shrink it down to the exact pixel size you need. Don't take a resampled photo and make a smaller one from it, always start with an unaltered copy of the file at its original size. This is especially important if you are working with JPG file because that file type already sacrifices pixels to compress the file on your hard drive. You don't want to take an altered JPG and alter it again -- that's how you end up with those ugly, weird pixels (called JPEG artifacts) in your photos. 3) Come up with a naming scheme for your images. It can be something as simple as 2 or 3 letters that identify the file (like which logo you're using) followed by an indication of the height, width, and bit- depth of the image. For example, logo files that I put on my www.ICanFixMyWebsite.com website, in HTML emails, and in print all start "ICF" followed by C for color, BW for black and white, then the width in pixels of the image and the number of pixels per inch (PPI). That way, I can look at a list of files and know instantly the purpose, size, and resolution of the images without previewing them. 4) Keep all of the altered photos, graphics, and logos together in folders of the same name. If you use the naming scheme I described, then you can navigate to one folder and easily choose the right size for your application. A perfect example of this is using your professional photo in multiple locations: on your website, in your printed pieces, in your chat programs, and on topic-based forums. Each of these situations requires a different size photo, but if you name the files with the width and PPI included, you can choose the right photo at a glance. Using these simple techniques will save you time as you work on your websites. Organize and protect these valuable image assets, and you'll get plenty of use from them for years to come. |
| About the Author | Jocelyn 'Toolie' Garner is a technology expert, speaker, and web designer whose acclaimed "I Can Fix My Website" course teaches website skills to entrepreneurs, small business owners, and virtual assistants. Don’t be held hostage by your web designer: learn how to update your website yourself. Visit www.icanfixmywebsite.com for more information. |
