images

Just a quick question, what tools does everyone on here to make their web graphics.

I see crystal clear images on web sites, but their file size are amazingly low. When I try and get an image's file size to reduce, it is at the expense to the quality, often resulting in the image looking hazy.

Corel Photo Paint 10 is quite useful.
You would have to fiddle about a bit with setting to get your desired quality/size.

I'm sure many people will disagree with Corel, but different people get used to different packages.

Adobe Photoshop is good, although expensive...

But you can do all kinds of great effects.

Also, a hint for quality issues; if you resize the image in whatever graphic program you end up using, the quality will be better than if you resize in the program you use to design your site.

good luck!

-CS

I like fireworks for web work. It also takes advantage of Photoshop filters if you have Photoshop installed. If you want a free program that can do graphics try TheGimp. This has a steep learning curve and many people don't like the user interface but it is the best free graphics program you'll find.

For compressing most programs out there have an optimized button which will find the best compression without losing image quality.

i use photoshop
i think it is the best and most powerful image editor

i have fireworks too (my friend gave it to me, i never use it..)
i didn't konw you could use photoshop filters.... how do u do this? is it automatic? i should mess with fireworks a little bit.. i hear it is good with flash and dreamweaver, both of which i use

coral: i have used this program and must say i didn't like it.. maybe just because i'm used to photoshop

as for the gimp, i used it for about a minute when i had linux installed on my computer before i discovered gateway computers and linux dont like each other too much....
anyway i found it to be very good, and easy to use
dont know about the windows version.....

well, i use photoshop anyhow, even after i hear other's opinions on what they use and why. i think it's just a matter of what you get used to, because many different people use many different programs and they all get good results

In fireworks 3 I'm you can specify the directory where the photoshop filters are located. Once the fireworks knows where they you have access to them.

E.

I use PS for most of my images, but almost always resave JPEGs through Fireworks. We're only on PS4, so Fireworks is way better for compression - much more flexibility between size and quality. (A 100kb JPEG in PS often comes out at about 30kb in Fireworks with little loss of quality.)

Also, Fireworks is good for text images as the GIF compression options are good too, and the text is re-editable, unlike PS4. (Yes, I know, later versions of PS have this too, but like someone said, it's a *little* pricey).

There is nothing better than Paint Shop Pro 7 by Jasc.
It's $150 in Canada and $109 in the US. It's not quite as equiped as PhotoShop but for $350 cheaper it's AWESOME.
And it now includes Animation Shop 3.

Heres an example. I made this in 20 minutes the other night for my father in law's new store.

I use Paint Shop Pro 7 a lot and it works really well. I have a collection of images I've made from it here: http://www.gooreo.com/anime.htm the stuff near the bottom is more recent (after about 3 months I learned how to use the program well.)

20 minutes? I could make that in less than 5 with photoshop...

It probably wouldn't take very long in any program...

Well it probably took me 5 minutes. I was just trying to make a point that it's easy to use and there are a lot of things you can do with it.
Bevels
Textures
Shadows
Text
Transparent background
Layers

and it's $350 less than PhotoShop.