Effective Image Optimisation Tricks for Your Website

Images are one of the most important key factors to do with website loading speed. Text itself isn't a problem, but all those accompanying images can be a real problem. But what can we do about it, short of removing them altogether?

Well, don't panic. You don't need to remove them. Simply adjusting some habits is about the most it would take. I've written about the benefits before, but this time I'm going to expand on them and tell you how I do it.

First, decide if you really need that image. If it has a repeating colour or gradients, why not split it up. Have a 1x1 pixel image for your one colour and repeat it. Actually, using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) will accomplish the same thing, without the extra download penalty. Get the bare minimum of an image that you want to use, and fake the rest.

Next, check out the high colour most image editing programs automatically apply to images. I bet that a good major portion of your audience wont be able to see it. We don't ALL have 16.5 million true colour displays on a 19