[thelist] Cropping images rather thn "squishing" them

[elkay]

Greg,

If you're looking for a quickie, you can indeed use the browser to make
pseudo-thumbnail images by adjusting the W/H attributes of the img tag
(though quality may degrade). All you have to do is ensure that the
reduction in size (percentage) is equally applied to both the width and the
height to retain the original proportions. You may need to get your
calculator out!

This is a double-edged sword though. To your advantage, if you will be using
the full-sized image later in your site, it will have already been cached by
the browser and appear quite quickly. On the other hand, if you're putting a
whole bunch of these pseudo-thumbnail images on a single page, the download
time will suffer as I've previously described.

If you're in a pinch for time, go ahead and do the pseudo-thumbnail images,
then, at your first opportunity (before the site goes live) create and
include optimized thumbnail images. This, of course, creates the other edge
of the sword. Now you will have to have twice as many images, a thumbnail
and a full-size for each image. You'll then be dealing with the thumbnail
file and full-size file download. BUT since they'll be on different pages,
the perceived download time is generally an accepted compromise for your
users.

Get my drift?
LK

----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Strange" <gstrange at e-tsi.com>
To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 3:02 PM
Subject: Re: [thelist] Cropping images rather thn "squishing" them


> on 7/8/00 3:56 PM, elkay at lwkraemer at earthlink.net wrote:
>
> > Greg,
> >
> > You are NOT cropping the image. You are resizing it. Browsers don't know
how
> > to crop images (short of using script to clip them). You'll want to use
your
> > graphics application to resize your images before you include them in
your
> > site.
>
> Well, this is a case of getting frustrated with layout and getting worried
> about impending deadline and generally flipping out because I thought
about
> how much time it was going to take to crop everything in Photoshop.
>
> I am trying to do a bunch of thumbnails for a storyboard.  Some pictures
are
> oriented landscape and others portrait.  I wanted to just shrink the
> landscape ones a little to fit onto the page.  I had remembered someone on
> the list talking about how height tags were not a good idea and after
> someone pointed out that tip for images, I realised that the caveat was
said
> in reference to tables.  Of course, this seems so ridiculously obvious
now.
>
> I had looked at doing layers in the browser to cover part of the pics but
> quickly realised I was going to spend a lot of time on something that was
> going to be hit-or-miss t best.
>
> I apologise for taking up everyone's time.
>
> Greg Strange