ImageReady photo quality

I build a site in image ready. The graphics are crisp while building, but then when I export it as an HTML file and view it in IE, the quality of the photos are drastically decreased. I am sure there is an option to optimize the output. The only optimization I see is the one to in the optimize panel. Help!

When you export as html you should have the option to choose what format you want your images in, and depending on the format, either the number of colors or the amount of compression you want.

I'm not sure what your experience level is, but if you need help choosing a file format let us know.

Could you please go over file choosing. I understand how to use it, in patches.

Before I save the file as an HTML file, I can choose to optimize. The preview is not as clear as the original. I want the file to look like the original. Is that possible?

Ok, so I haven't used ImageReady in awhile, so I had to go check some stuff .

Go take a look at the Optimize panel (Should be the 5th option in the Window menu) and there you can change your image output options. Unless your design is one giant photograph, you'll probably want to choose GIF or PNG-8 (PNG-24 is awsome, but IE has broken support for it). The best choices for color types are Adaptive and Selective. If you've chosen specific colors for your design that you want to use exactly, but sure to be Selective (Adaptive just does a rough estimation). You can play with the number of colors to see how the results look. If you switch your image to 2-up or 4-up, you can compare different settings. The less colors you use the smaller the file sizes. Be sure to turn off dithering (it makes stuff really ugly), and I generally leave Lossy at 0 when making .gifs, but feel free to experiment.

Thank you so much. I have played with it and have seen how far I can go with it!