Week 3

It seemed to work pretty well last week, so I think I'll just copy over my preliminary notes.

Absolute v relative links:

• Absolute links include the full website address. Relative links usually only include the final bit and are dependent on the directory structure of the website. They can be viewed locally on the computer (offline) as well as online. They can be just about any type of file, though only some of them can be opened in a browser. Other types of files will be downloaded

An IMG tag is the most common way to add graphics to an html page. Web standard for graphics is 72 dpi.

There are 2 main types of files used.

• JPEG – joint photographic experts group. Compression is “lossy”, which means that it throws away subtle colour differences. The larger a file size, the better the quality, and vice versa. It’s important to find a balance between quality and size, but you have to remember that once an image has been compressed (and saved), the compression can’t be reversed.
• GIF – graphic interchange format. It uses a compression algorithm and it is a lossless compression. It’s better for type, vector, flat or hard-edged images. It can also handle animation.
• PNG is less standardized, but is becoming more common. They’re larger than GIF files and do not always display properly in older browsers. This means you have to create 2 different files to substitute an alternative.

I have an article and a book chapter to summarize, which I post separately.

We’re also getting started with Fireworks this week. Fireworks is something I knew absolutely nothing about, but it’s really cool. You can work with both vector images and bitmaps in the same program. That’s just crazy talk there.

Fireworks CS4 can import Photoshop files and still maintain all of the information, including layer hierarchy. I’m stunned. This is going to take a little while to process.