Help! My site banner is loading toooo slow!

nikkii30 · #1 (**permalink**) 03-07-2008, 02:00 PM

I have tried everything to keep the quality of my image, which I made in Fireworks and saved in PNG to load faster. Can someone tell me how to save the quality of the image but make it load much quicker on my website!!!

ssmorgan · #2 (**permalink**) 03-07-2008, 02:18 PM

The image format is .png - try to save it as .jpeg or .gif

saving it in one of these formats will lead to a smaller image size and it will load faster. As for the quality, try them both and see which one you're happier with, I am sure you won't sacrifice the quality too much, if at all.

Also, TechnicallyEasy (another Website Babble member) had a recent blog post about the jpeg vs the gif format. I have included a link... I am sure you will find it helpful:
http://www.technicallyeasy.net/2008/...eg-format.html

Sherif

nikkii30 · #3 (**permalink**) 03-07-2008, 02:41 PM

Thanks ssmorgan for such a quick response! I tried saving the banner before in .gif and .jpeg and definitely loss the quality, thats why I had to save it in .png. Thanks for the link! I'll see if I can find any answers there!

ssmorgan · #4 (**permalink**) 03-07-2008, 02:46 PM

By the way, I just wanted to say that I love the color scheme of your site... kind of a bummer that you lose the quality with jpeg or gif.

I am sure TechnicallyEasy has more insight, and I am sure he will chime in

Sherif

psychdev · #5 (**permalink**) 03-07-2008, 05:21 PM

Some programs allow you to save a jpg as "lossless"... i think the free GIMP is one such program

nixwebo · #6 (**permalink**) 03-12-2008, 09:52 AM

Here ya go, from 434KB to 80KB in size and I believe it still looks pretty good, but there is a little fuzz to it so I am gonna work on it, but if this is useable, lemme know.

Should be a noticable difference in load time.

80 KB .JPG File

434 KB .PNG File

nikkii30 · #7 (**permalink**) 03-12-2008, 10:42 AM

The 80KB looks great! I hardly notice the difference. This is exactly what I was trying to achieve. I will use the new banner to upload to my site. Thanks for your help!!!!

TechieGuy · #8 (**permalink**) 03-12-2008, 07:10 PM

Quote:

I am sure TechnicallyEasy has more insight, and I am sure he will chime in

I really should read posts more closely.

Hi nikkii30,

I have taken a look at your header, as well as the good job that nixwebo has done. I did manage to make it a bit smaller.

Here is the header at 60% compression for a size of 35KB:

Here is the header at 70% compression for a size of 44KB:

JPEG is definitely the way to go with this one because of the many colours and transitions. Switching to GIF with it's 256 colour limit will result it banding.

nixwebo · #9 (**permalink**) 03-13-2008, 07:42 AM

And I thought it was good, nikkii30 you should get one of the banners off of TechieGuy's post, there smaller and even sharper, awesome!

nikkii30 · #10 (**permalink**) 03-13-2008, 09:30 PM

I saved all three compressions. I will decide later which will work best as I complete my site. Thank you so much to you both for your hard work!!

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