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The fast paced life of these days can be felt even in the virtual world where most of the web surfers do not have the time or patience for web pages that take forever to load. This trend is increasingly worrying organizations, which is why they are now designing web pages using photo optimization. If you are wondering what this is all about, read on to know more about it.

Photo optimization is basically the process by which image sizes are made smaller without significant loss to the picture quality in order to speed up the loading time of web pages. Though there is a certain degree of loss of picture quality, you can make this minimal with the use of proper software. More than 50% of the loading time of a web page is spent on pictures and thus, it is essential to cut down on the picture size to make a web page look attractive, as well as offering surfers with faster loading times.

First and foremost, the picture to be used should be brought down to the resolution offered by the monitor. Computer monitors display images at 72 dots per inch or dpi in short. Even if the picture that you want to use is large, there’s no need to press the panic button. The picture can be divided into smaller parts and uploaded separately after making the necessary changes and they can be later joined on the webpage itself. This process might take a bit of time but it offers much faster load times.

There are two other methods of speeding up load times as well. One of them is the removal of color palette information. Images generally contain color palette information, which is more or less unnecessary. Certain graphic editing software have the option ‘Save For The Web’. This option ends up removing a lot of unnecessary information and thus reduces the file size. Another method for optimizing load times is the usage of JPEG progressive or GIF or PNG interlaced property. This method can be seen in many web pages. It basically loads a blurry version of the image first but slowly allows the same to become crisper and clearer.

If you are wondering about how many images should be used while designing your web page, you would do well to know that there is no exact answer to this question. Though the usage of fewer images results in faster load times, including many pictures can often make a site look very enticing. Selection of the number of images to be used is dependent completely on the web page designer, keeping in mind the type of web page that is to be designed and your objective behind the same.

Photo quality is also to be kept in mind. Usage of photo editors is recommended for removing noise from the picture. Programs like Photoshop give the designer the freedom of doing almost anything with the picture. Even thumbnails can be used on web pages as a link to a higher resolution version of the image.

So, don’t test the patience of your site visitors by using heavy image files. Rather, use photo optimization to speed up the loading time of your web pages, which in turn will hold the attention of your visitors and entice them to dig deeper.