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GRAPHICS
INTRODUCTION
Inserting graphics on your
web pages is an exciting and unique way to distinguish your
page from other sites and set the tone for what you want to
present. The mix between text and graphics can be a
difficult decision and I believe it is a personal
preference. The best way to determine this mix is through
trial and error. Too many and your page will load slowly. To
few and you may not have enough interest to hold your
visitors. Visit
the Workshop for more information.
DETERMINE
YOUR STYLE
It really depends on what
your site is trying to accomplish. Business sites will have
a different ratio of graphics to say, a sports site. The
best way to determine the mix is to ask your visitors for
their input. After all your web site is a type of service
and if you can please your visitors then they will send
others.
You can gather graphics
through a number of sources. There are many different places
and we will look at some of them in the following pages.
ARCHIVES
OF GRAPHICS
You may already have a large
collection of graphics and not realize it. If you have clip
art on a disk, or Microsoft Office or Claris Works, you
already have images you can use. Office and Works have clip
art which can be inserted into word processing programs. I
opened up Microsoft Office and, inside the Word folder,
discovered a folder titled Clip Art, which contained dozens
of graphics; however, they were not in a format which is
supported by IE or Netscape. To convert them, I used a
graphics converter program and saved them as GIFs or JPG's.
Once they were in this format, I could include them on my
Web page.
There is also a wealth of
graphics on the web and many of them are free.
WEB
LINKS
This is a
really big list so please understand that some of the links
may die over time. I constantly try and update this resource
but there are plenty to choose from.
Warning
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These website sometimes are purchased by unscrupulous
people so if you find a site that has unsavoury material
please report it to us so we can remove from the list. Here is a list of free and low-cost photo sources. May be interesting for those who need cheap high-quality photos.
By far the best is a little
site I found called SXC. You can join for free and get some
great free photos for you business. http://www.sxc.hu/
Please keep this one to yourself.
http://www.pixelperfectdigital.com
http://www.photosforfree.de
http://www.morguefile.com
http://www.photobreed.com
http://www.picturestation.net
http://free-stock-photos.com
http://freeimages.co.uk
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