Preserved Topic: Cutting Up (Page 1 of 1)

Is there an automated way to cut a large graphic up into small pieces so it loads fast? If there isn't an automated way, is there a faster way than snapping to the grid lines one square at a time and making individual small graphics? OR......... do I need to cut them up at all? Is there a simple way to make large images load fast?

THanks!
Desperate in Diego

What you're referring to, I think, is "slicing". And yeah, if you have Photoshop 6, it comes with ImageReady. Creating Slices in Imageready is quick and relatively painless.

~fist eater of the stars~

Uh...get a faster connection.

Really, aside from compressing the image (jpg or gif, as needed) there really is no way to speed up download time. Large images are large images. That's just the way it is. Now, some browsers and OS's can perform many tasks at once. I've heard/read that 8 is the magic number. That is, if you have one big image (80k) or 8 smaller images (10k each), the 8 smaller images will dl faster than the 1 big image. I've never actually tried this with a stopwatch or anything, but it could be something you may want to test. Even if this is the case, I doubt that the time difference is significant.

As far as actually cutting (slicing) images, look at Adobe's Image Ready. It is distributed with PS vers 6. (Some earlier versions too, but 6 is the only thing selling these days.)
http://www.adobe.com

mobrul

Someone tell me if I am wrong, (which I know they will) but.....

If you have a large image, sliced and assembled in a table, with each image saved as progressive/interlaced, won't it appear to load up faster, because then you will have (let's say "8") images loading simultaneously vs. 1 big image loading from the "top" of the page down, hmmmph..... ok let me try to clairify; loading will be distributed evenly instead of just from the top down? Does that make sense? (Help! I need a translator! Anyone speak blonde?)

... and hello and welcome to the Asylum Cow! Now there are three Diego-ans - oh noooo....

An important thing to note is that 100k = 100k.

So if your image is 100k, there's not much you can do about it.

However, splitting it up into, for example, 8 different images MIGHT help depending on how you save them. If there are very few colors in on sector, save it as a GIF with a low indexed color count.

If it's a lot of colors (photos, for example) then you save as JPG with lots of compression and low quality.

But if the whole thing is just one big photo, then you're screwed, my friend. 100k = 100k.


s t e p h e n

theres nothing wrong with slicing up the image. sometimes its good, but sometimes its not.

i do it sometimes to prevent banding, or to prevent too many colors from being discarded with gifs. most of the time, though, its so that i can arrange it around my content.

care must be used when determining exactly how small you will be slicing it up, since each image requires its own request from the server. using gobs of small slices can take longer to download than a few large images, simply because of the number of requests that must be made.

usually, if i want to display a large image, i make a thumbnail version of what i want to show and make a link to a large image. that way, people can decide whether or not they want to see it.

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this rose has a thorn...

One of the good stuff of PS Sliding images (And i do it with PS, no Image ready) is that if your image has several slides with only one color, it add only one image for that and resize the image (At least is only one color!) making the image, of course, lighter (Lighter?, Less Heavy? AARgghh!!! I need my translator's Batteries!)

like twItch says: compress it, right format for the right characteristics

Some explanation of this very thing

I've seen more than a fair amount of 'sliced' images on the web and a whole pantload is completely unnecessary and only serves to, uh, nevermind, serves no purpose.


Jason