Introduction to JPEG's in Graphic Web Design

 Working With Graphics for Web Design: JPEG's: Beginner

This is a moc-up JPEG I used in the design process before building a site.

 

 I got a chance to learn about JPEG's through a very wonderful source. A man by the name of Paul Cichocki, the owner of Las Vegas Pix out here in las vegas, NV. I started as an assistant for his company, then moved up to working with Adobe Photoshop editing photo's, eventually after sometime he let me start photographing. JPEG's are a standard format output for camera's, there is also a much basic version called RAW format but we will not get into that in this post. What is a JPEG? Well a JPEG is a bitmap image and I will explain more about bitmaps below. Here is a definition that's pretty accurate:

JPEG:
(Joint Photographic Experts Group) An ISO/ITU standard for compressing still images. Pronounced "jay-peg," the JPEG format is very popular due to its variable compression range. JPEGs are saved on a sliding resolution scale based on the quality desired. For example, an image can be saved in high quality for photo printing, in medium quality for the Web and in low quality for attaching to e-mails, the latter providing the smallest file size for fastest transmission over slow connections.
 Definition By: www.pcmag.com

JPEG's are great for controlling image compression and file size. As mentioned above you are able to choose the quality and compression of the file through any standard image editing program. My favorite image editing software is Adobe Photoshop. PS is used by most professional photographers to manipulate the JPEG size, quality, and aesthetic look of an image. It is an amazing tool to use when working with bitmap images. If you are approaching the world of web design you should really start to learn about the JPEG (bitmap image).

Bitmap: 
In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with pixmap, it commonly refers to the similar concept of a spatially mapped array of pixels. Raster images in general may be referred to as bitmaps or pixmaps, whether synthetic or photographic, in files or memory.
In certain contexts, the term bitmap implies one bit per pixel, while pixmap is used for images with multiple bits per pixel.
Definition By: www.wikipedia.com

Photoshop also has huge selection of professional tools that can really help to turn your good images into great images. Let's face it, the web has become a world that is based on visual appeal. Chances are if you learn how to work with JPEG's and are decent with HTML(Hyper Text Markup Language) you will be on your way to becoming a decent Graphic Web Designer. There is also a very important file format called a PSD. If you plan to start doing any work with Photoshop you will have to familiarize yourself with this format. It stands for Photoshop Document. This file type supports layers and you will learn to love layer's, but I will be speaking more about layers and other graphic file formats later. Please feel free to ask any question concerning my blog topics.