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Optimizing photos

This means giving your photos the optimum balance between quality and file size. Remember the key issue for photos on the web is to have the fastest possible download speed - you do not want your visitors waiting. Yet at the same time you obviously want the highest quality you can achieve. The only way to do this is via a bit of trail and error, by trying different quality settings and keeping an eye on the file size.

Here are the four examples of different quality settings again.

On the Smart Photo Editor you can alter the image quality from the 'image adjustments' tab. Typically a 75% quality is good enough but you may find that a lower setting still produces an acceptable picture quality, but with a much smaller file size. The smaller the file, the better your website and the more likely your visitors will stay.

The quality and other controls of the Smart Photo Editor

Enhancing photos

Almost all photos can be improved. The Smart Photo editor provides the basic tools for doing this, namely controls over the color, brightness, contrast and most importantly the sharpness. In the end the quality of the original photo is the main determining factor. You can enhance most photos, but if the original is poor quality then you're never going to be able to make it look great.

Sharpening

It's rare that that some slight sharpening doesn't improve and image. However you need to be careful with this control not to overdo it. Over-sharpened images look grainy, and they also make the file size larger. It's unusual that an image needs more than about 115% sharpening - the following example is over-sharpened at 150%, but it doesn't look too bad because the image has been reduced in size so much.

© Charles Moir 2002