[PookJP]

I am working on my first web site at the moment, and am having great difficulty exporting Illustrator/Photoshop .GIFs and .JPGs to be files of a manageable size. It seems as if everything I export is either around 400K or 200K. Some of these are tiny images... just a word in some cases, yet they are the same size as some of the actual graphics.

Perfect example: see the ribbed lines on the background of the MacNN page? I'm using these on one section of the site. I exported just one line of these that I made (3 pixels high) and it ended up being a 205K .gif file. What's going on??

Do any of you have any suggestions for how I can trim these files down? I want them to be more like 5K then 205K.

FYI: the size I'm talking about is the one displayed when I select the file and choose "Get Info."

Couple o' things:

1) What's the resolution of these images? Make sure they are at 72 ppi, not 300.
2) How many colors are you using? In Photoshop, use the Save for Web function (5.5 and higher) and limit the colors in the palette. For GIFs, that means starting with Auto and working down to a handful, 2-10 colors, depending on the image. For JPGs, start witha medium resolution (in the thirties) and work down to the teens.
3) That 3-pixel high background image: how wide is it? A browser will tile the image, so you don't have to make it as wide as the page. Try 3 pixels high and maybe 20 or 40 pixels wide. (Note: too small a background graphic can make for real slow screen redraws.)

Keep working on it, it will come.

[crownie99]

I would definately check the resolution you are saving everything in.

[ 06-22-2001: Message edited by: crownie99 ]

[MM-o4]

This might be a silly question, but what is the hardrive 'minimum' file size? I had a simpler problem with small files having bigger then expected file sizes. The root of my problem was the harddirve that I was saving the files to had a minimum file size of 400k. So the smallest file could only be as small as 400k even if it 'really' was only 20k.
Just 'command i' the folder you are saving these files in and see what it says is the 'bytes' are, thats the parts that is in brackets. This is the true file size. If that looks okay then make sure you have done what the guyz above have suggested.

Good luck

MM-o4
http://go.to/mprojects