You can save both memory and download time by color-reducing your image. When you color-reduce an image, you minimize the number of colors used. For example, the image may start with a palette of 16.7 million colors, but you can reduce it to a 256-color palette. Since the 16.7 million color palette is a 24-bit image, and the 256-color palette is an 8-bit image, the change results in a reduction to one-third the size.
You may think that this reduction will cause the image quality to degrade, but actually your image did not use all of the 16.7 million colors. In fact, most images do not use more than 2,000 colors.
To compensate for any color loss, Picture Publisher uses a dither pattern, which replaces a color with a scatter of colors to give the illusion of the original color.
To color-reduce an image to a 256-color palette image, click Convert to Palette Color on the Image menu.
The options you choose depend on what you want the image to look like. The Color options are 256-Color, 16-Color, 8-Color, and Custom number. The Dither options are Pattern, Scattered, and None. The palette options are Optimized, Custom, and System.
Of all the options, we recommend using 256-color, scattered, and optimized for best results, but try the other options as well and decide for yourself.
Once you color-reduce the image, save it as a GIF file for use
in your HTML script for your home page.
Introduction | << Size the Image | Save a Transparent GIF File >>
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