I know this isn't php...

[brown2005]

How do I optomize images to be smaller and load quicker?

[b]EDIT BY OBER: Please do not use all CAPS in titles or text of messages.  It will be edited.[/b]

[ober]

Open the images in any photo editor (Photoshop, Corel Photo, Picasa, MSPaint, etc).  All these programs have a "resize", "optomize", or some other similar option that will allow you to modify the pictures in regards to size and disk space.

[Koobi]

also image format is important.

for things like photo's that have many colours, it's better to use a JPG since it has quite a wide colour range and has very good compression that is configurable at the cost of being less clear, however.

GIF's are great for images with a limited colour range...however i would prefer PNG's...the problem with PNG's is that if you have partial transparency (alpha layer), then IE is gonna show you a blue box instead of the partially transparent block...this can be overcome with CSS hacks but hacks are a bad idea, in my opinion.


i generally go with PNG's for most things. i ,rarely, if ever, use JPG's or GIF's.


another interesting format is the MNG which is the brother of PNG (or was it the cousin? or the aunt? whoever decides how they are related anyway? :D) and is similar to an animated GIF, in that, it has the same colour range of a PNG (more or less) but can be animated since it can hold multiple frames.

[corbin]

I generally use JPG or PNG... with an occasion GIF