Images are or can be an important part of web site development. Photographs and other graphics can be very useful as tools for communication. Unfortunately, it's easy to overwhelm web site visitors by including large and numerous images. With just a little bit of knowledge and work, however, images can be managed and their potential negative impact can be minimized.

When trying to communicate ideas or tell a story, photographs and other graphics can be compelling. The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" is often true. Sometimes, pictures are the only practical way to communicate ideas.

Given the great value of photographs and graphic images, it's easy to get carried away and plaster them all over the place. It's also common for extremely large image files to be used when much smaller files may be just as effective at illustration. Web sites that either overuse images (too many or too large) are difficult to use and produce an unpleasant browsing experience. That is, the images (the same images that are supposed to improve communication) can reduce the usefulness of the web site.

It's important to manage and even minimize the use of images so that web site navigation is not negatively impacted by their presence.

For quick loading, image files should be kept well below 100k Bytes in size. Larger image files can be resized with most image editing tools. Examples of these include Microsoft Photo Editor (Windows XP) and GraphicConverter (Mac). These tools allow for image compression and reduction in image resolution. If a high-resolution image MUST be available on a website, it's a good idea to provide a direct link to it rather than displaying it on a high-traffic web page.