Easy Web Graphics by Julie Adair King, Julie Adair King

From the Publisher

Easy Web Graphics is the ideal guide for the growing crowd of computer-literate people who run a Web site and want it to look its best and be easy to use-without hiring a full-time Webmaster. The book helps readers evaluate their Web pages with a critical design eye and points them toward the right hardware and software to tackle their design projects-focusing on the programs in Microsoft Office 2000. The book also covers text fundamentals-font selection, aliasing, paragraph spacing, and so on-and shows how to use special effects to jazz up headlines and other large text elements. It also discusses photos, drawings, and clip art (including where to find it), it explains critical technical information such as graphic resolution, color palettes, and file formats, and it shows how to draw simple illustrations and shoot and retouch digital pictures with Microsoft PhotoDraw. It also presents design treatments that work with both text and graphics. The book covers projects such as using pictures as links, animating GIF images, and creating tiled backgrounds. It also includes a handy listing of Web and print resources that offer excellent design advice and technical assistance.

Booknews

This guide to Web design introduces some basic principles of design and then offers instruction for using software like Microsoft FrontPage 2000 and PhotoDraw 2000 to produce logos, text effects, backgrounds, and buttons. Specific chapters address elements of design, tools, details, text, and pictures. An appendix discusses Web-safe colors. King is an author and design consultant. Features numerous color illustrations. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 2: fast and easy, Design Tools

The point is, creating Web graphics requires just a few vital hardware and software components, which we'll explore in this chapter. I'll also introduce you to a few goodies that aren't absolutely necessary but will make your graphics work easier and more enjoyable.

Hardware: Is Your Computer Up to the Job?

Working with graphics puts a significant strain on a computer's resources. If your system doesn't have much muscle, your graphics software will run very slowly and may even cause the computer to freeze up on occasion. The system components that affect graphics work the most are the processor, RAM (random access memory, or simply memory), the hard drive, and the video card. Here's a look at how each of these components factors into the graphics equation and my advice on the minimum requirements for speedy, reliable performance:

• Processor It's probably no secret to you that the processor plays a big role in how quickly the system carries out your commands. The good news is that if you bought a new computer in the past two years, you've probably got the processor power you need. At a minimum, I recommend a Pentium II 233 MHz chip (or its equivalent). Most new systems go well beyond that, especially if they're designed for computer gaming.

• RAM (memory) This is the category where the average system falls short. If your computer doesn't have adequate RAM, it may not be able to perform some high-level graphics tasks or allow you to keep more than one picture open at a time.

  Most new graphics programs require a minimum of 32 MB of RAM, but trust me, you won't be happy with anything less than 64 MB, especially for photo editing and creating 3D artwork. More RAM is definitely better; go for 96 MB or 128 MB if your budget allows.

• Hard drive When it comes to your system's hard drive, it's not overall size that counts but the amount of empty storage space. Your hard drive is the location where you will typically store your graphics and other personal files, but your computer frequently uses it too. When you work on your computer, data typically gets stored temporarily in RAM. If the RAM supply gets low, your computer may use your hard drive as additional storage. So you should always keep some empty space on your hard drive. If your hard drive is really cramped and you can't offload any files to a floppy disk, CD-ROM, or some other secondary storage device, do yourself a favor and invest in a bigger hard drive or add a second drive to your system. Some programs allow you to specify a removable-media drive, such as a Zip drive or a CD-ROM drive, for your temporary storage space, but these drives typically are too slow for this purpose.

• Video card The speed at which images are displayed on your monitor is determined in part by the video card, sometimes called the graphics card or display adapter. Equally important, the video card also controls the maximum screen resolution and the number of colors your monitor can display at each of the resolution settings the card offers.

  Evaluating video cards requires an advanced degree in geekology because so many designs exist. But for graphics work, one critical spec is the amount of video RAM on the card. You need a card with at least 2 MB of video RAM to display 24-bit color (about 16.7 million colors) at a screen resolution of 800 by 600 pixels and a card with 4 MB video RAM to get 24-bit color at a screen resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels. Especially for digital photography work, I think that 24-bit color-also known as true color-is a must, but everyone's not as picky as I am. (Note that the actual video RAM requirements for these examples are about 1.4 MB and 2.3 MB, respectively, but cards come in configurations of 1 MB, 2 MB, 4 MB, and up.)

Again, if you're using a relatively new computer, your system likely meets all these qualifications. If your computer isn't up to snuff and a new one isn't in the cards, you can improve performance by cleaning out your hard drive to free up more scratch disk space. Investing in additional RAM also offers a good return, although memory isn't as cheap as it used to be. As for upgrading your video card or processor, neither option is simple or inexpensive, so be sure to weigh the cost/benefit ratio of upgrading to buying a new system.

Graphics Storage: What's the Best Option?

If you work on a computer that's part of a large corporate hive, you may never have to worry about finding storage space for all your graphics files. But if you're flying solo-doing your work on a laptop, at home, or in a small office system-you'll eventually reach the point where you can't stuff one more file onto your hard drive. You can always add a second hard drive, of course, but you should also think about investing in an auxiliary device that stores files on some type of removable medium. This option not only enables you to reserve your hard drive space for files that you use regularly but also protects you from losing important files if your hard drive goes wacko.

There are many storage options, but my top pick at the moment is a CD recorder, which costs around $150 to $400, depending on the model's speed and whether you buy an internal or external unit. When CD recorders were first introduced on the consumer market, I considered them too complicated and too prone to problems to recommend to anyone but experienced computer gurus. But now they're as easy to use as a floppy drive. Using special recording software, you can simply drag and drop files to the CD drive's icon, just as you do when copying or moving files to a floppy.

For the best deal, get a CD recorder that offers both CD-R and CD-RW capabilities. (In case you're wondering, the R stands for recordable and the RW stands for rewritable.) With CD-R, you can record your files to a CD, but you can't erase any files from the CD once they're on it. CD-RW enables you to add and delete files as necessary. Some older CD drives can't read CD-RW disks, however, so you'll need to stick with CD-R for files that you need to access on those drives. Also, CD-R is best for archiving files that you want to keep for a long time; data on CD-R disks is less likely to degrade over time, and you can't accidentally overwrite an important file. Best of all, CD-R disks are cheap, cheap, cheap-about 30 cents apiece if you watch the sale ads. A CD-RW disk costs a little more-about $1.00 on sale-but of course, you can reuse a CD-RW disk over and over, whereas a CD-R disk is a one-shot deal...