Optimizing Your Web Page Speed - Optimize Images and Multimedia
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Images are usually the largest files on a web page and take up most of the download time, hence image optimization is crucial.
First off, stay away from the following formats: TIFF and BMP. Use JPEG, GIFF and PNG instead. All three have good compression and are suited for various purposes.
(Photoshop is the standard in image editing, for web and other purposes)
Use JPEGs with photographs, product images and presentation images. Anywhere you need a high quality picture at the smallest possible size, JPEG is the best choice. You'll find little difference between high quality JPEG and medium quality, yet sizes can be up to three times smaller.
Use GIFF compression for icons, backgrounds and small graphics.
Use PNG for high quality screen shots, transparent graphics and icons.
Here are some more image optimization tips:
Resize image to the exact dimension that you want to use on the web page. Extra size adds weight and download time.
Use CSS backgrounds and borders instead of images.
Minimize bit depth in GIFs and PNGs.
Adjust layers in Photoshop to minimize the width of the drop shadow for better compression.
Videos
Video optimization is only useful if you're hosting videos on the server, and if you are, I must ask a question: why? It eats too much bandwidth and requires manual optimization of files, taking extra time. Unless you absolutely must host video, use the following websites. They will compress your videos to the smallest possible size, while maintaining a good level of quality.
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.metacafe.com/
http://video.yahoo.com/
Flash
A basic Flash mistake is lack of image optimization. Use Photoshop for optimization instead of Flash. You might not notice the difference at first, but as you do it to hundreds of images, you will feel the overall weight reduction as it adds up.
Avoid Flash optimizers, free or not. They degrade quality too much. Real optimization is manual.
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