By: Ryan McCullough

Digital cameras capture images using pixels, the same small squares of color you see on your computer

screen.

The standard resolution for digital images is 72 (72 pixels per square inch).

Digital cameras are taking bigger and bigger pictures as they evolve.

While this is good for the quality of the image, it is not practical to use these raw images on the web

without editing them because of the large file size.

The same reasoning applies to digital images taken with your phone.

Phones can downsample images before sending them to email, text messages or posting online.

You can manually downsample images when you download from your camera onto your computer.

Downsampling means reducing the number of pixels to reduce the actual size of the image and the file

size of the image

Digital camera:

A 4:3 ratio means that the ratio of width to height of the image is 4 to 3.

This is shaped like a regular monitor.

A 16:9 ratio means that the ratio of width to height is 16 to 9.

This is shaped like a wide screen monitor.

The quality and file size of the image is measured in megapixels.

This is how much room it takes up on your memory card.

Ratio and Megapixels:

You should edit and optimize digital images to load quickly with a reasonable size before using on the

web.

Downloads:

Best practice:

You should edit and optimize digital images to load quickly with a reasonable size before using on the

web.

Images should be less than 800 pixels wide or 700 pixels tall.

Resolution should be 72

Best practice:

Save for Web is a feature available in Adobe Photoshop that optimizes images for use on the web.

You can choose the file type (.jpg, .png, .gif) and the actual size of the image.

Photoshop automatically reduces the file size to a chosen quality (maximum, high, medium, low) to

improve loading time, and automatically changes the resolution to 72

Save for Web:

Image before and after:

All file names should be lower case.

There should be 3 things included in the file name.

1. What is it? (the name of the assignment or topic)

2. When was it taken? (semester or year) e.g.F2013

3. Who took it? (your last name or initials)

The parts of the file name should be separated by dashes to prevent

white space.

• Dashes are preferable because underscores do not show up in

link. (these-are-dashes) and (these_are_underscores)

• White space in file names will be filled in with %20.

No forbidden characters *&^%$#@!.

Avoid forward/ or back\ slashes in file names.

Naming digital images: