Image Info

One of the most common mistakes made by rookie web designers is failing to optimise image files before importing them into EverWeb and making sure that their file names are correct.
Before an image is added to a web page its dimensions and file size need to be optimised.
Select the image in the Finder folder, right click it and select "Get Info" from the contextual menu.
The image file name, file extension and file size can all be seen at the top of the menu.
To find the file width and height, turn down the arrow next to "More Info" and the dimensions will be shown highlighted.
Retina Images
Avoid uslng "retina" @2x images in a responsive web page. It's doubtfull that the average visitor will appreciate the extra quality and the negative effect on the page download speed is considerable.

Mobile Phone Images

Images when viewed on phones tend to lack definition. When preparing, open the phone sized image in Preview.app and move the Saturation and Sharpness sliders a little to the right to add some zing.
Be sure to reoptimise the images after making any adjustments.

Resizing Images

All the images used in a website should be resized before importing into EverWeb. There is no point in using an image with a 2000px width and a huge file file size if it is going to be displayed at 800px wide on the page.
* Oversized images are the main reason why web pages don't download fast enough. *
To reduce the size of an image file …

• Double click the file to launch it in Preview.app
• Click on the "Tools" dropdown and choose "Adjust Size …"
• Make sure that the unit selector is set to "pixels"
• Enter the new width or height and close the Preview window

Not Convinced ?

Follow the link below to find out why you need to optimise image files and insert them using a widget that incorporates a lazy loading function …

Preparing Slideshow Images

Images to be displayed in a lightbox slideshow only need to be about 1200px wide and certainly no more than 1600px. For responsive pages that will be displayed on mobile phones, smaller is better.
* Make sure the image file names have no spaces or special characters in them. *
Thumbnail Images
Obviously it is far better to create separate thumbnail images. The only exception is the EW Auto Gallery where the thumbnails are created in a separate folder on the server.
It is possible to load the full size images in the widget's Assets List for use as thumbnails and then reselect each one again as the large image. This should only be done by really lazy people where the full size images have been optimised and the total number of images is kept to 12 or less.
Resizing Images
The full size images should be assembled in a Finder folder and checked to make sure the file names have no spaces or special charactrs in them. They can then be batch resized in Preview.app to the required maximum width.
Resizing Thumbnails
Create a new folder for the thumbnail images, select all the large images (command + a), copy them (command + c) and then paste them (command +v) into the new folder.
Now they can be resized all at once use Preview.app …

• Select all the images (command + a)
• Double click them to open them all together in Preview
• Select all the images in the Preview window (command + a)
• Select "Adjust Size …" from the Tools drop down menu
• Make sure the unit dropdown selector is set to "pixels"
• Enter the required grid row height into the "Height" box
• Click "OK"
• Save the resized image (command + s)
• Now select all the images in the thumbnails folder and drag then onto the Assets List in the gallery widget settings panel to load then all at once
• Rearranged the images by holding down the mouse on an image file name and drag it up or down the list to its new position

Optimise Images

Follow the link below to get a free copy of ImageOptim. Use it to reduce JPEG files by up to 20% and PNG files by 50% or more.