Graphics Resources

© 2001 by Walt Howe
(last revised 27 September 2001)

Graphics Development Guides

Color Guides

Graphics Software

Graphics Sources

Graphics Development Guides

Graphics Guide #1, Creating Small Graphics for Web Pages. First of a series, this guide tells you when to use GIF and when to use JPEG and how to make them as small and quick-loading as possible for most effective web use.
Graphics Guide #2, How to Lose Your Web Viewers. Tables show you how long it takes to transfer files at different speeds and the impact on retaining viewers of the web site for different sizes and speeds.
Graphics Guide #3, Web Safe GIF Colors, Dithering, and Anti-Aliasing. Learn more about how to select web safe colors for GIF files without dithering, and how and when to use anti-aliasing.
How to Build Graphical Signatures A guide to building your own custom signatures including graphics.
Start Page Graphics. How to add graphics to your Forum Start page.

Quality Web Page Design. This article explains how to produce quality design. It is not a course in graphic design, but a set of DOs and DON'Ts to consider in laying out and designing your web pages.
GIF Wizard from Raspberry Hill Publishing Inc. An online utility that will minimize the size of GIF files for you.
Creating Transparent GIF images using LView Pro. A tutorial by Randy Ralph.

Color Guides

The 216 colors in Netscape which do not dither. This link gives you a very good explanation of the colors you should use to be sure they look the same on all browsers and systems.
Lynda Weinman's 216-color chart. This chart from the home page of the author of the very good book Coloring Web Graphics gives the colors and their hexadecimal and decimal values.

Graphics Software

Our Internet Software Guide includes recommended graphics software, reviews, and sources for

Windows 95 and beyond
Windows 3.1
Macintosh
Amiga
Unix
OS/2
MSDOS
Adaptive Technology for the blind and disabled.

Graphics Sources

The following sources include clip art and other graphics files provided for web use. Whatever source you use, read any accompanying files that address copyright or other restrictions.

Copyright Guidance

Any copyrighted material appearing on your web pages must be posted with the permission of the copyright holder. The absence of a copyright notice does not mean that a message or article or piece of artwork or a photograph is not copyrighted. All material less than 75 years old not specifically placed in the public domain by the copyright holder is copyrighted.Some uses of parts of copyrighted material are permitted as fair use in some circumstances, but the law is not well developed for such things as electronic publication. When in doubt, do not use copyrighted material, unless you have written permission or own the material yourself. Even if you are sure that the copyright holder would have no objection, ask anyway! For more on this, see the Copyright Guidance file and the links it points to.

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