First Steps  Templates  Images      Hints      Banners      Backgrounds  User Permissions  Websites  Tools  Resources  Legals	Preparing images for your site Image format and size The Web only recognises certain image formats - JPG and GIF (still or animated), so you usually need to prepare your images so that the Web can display them. However the take2theweb system recognises many image formats (such as Windows bmp format) and will change them into jpg or gif format as appropriate for you. It's also worth re-sizing your images to the size you want to see them on your site. This will save you time uploading excessively large images. However, there are tools in take2theweb - pull down menus in each "article" or "cell" in Edit mode - that will change the size for you. You will find the menus next to the "Browse" buttons. You can do this in most digital camera or scanner software. When you save the image, chose Save As, and select the JPG or GIF option. Generally JPG is good for photographs or subtly graduated images. GIF is best for illustrations. You could use more powerful software to create more interesting effects such as fading an image to make it into a watermark for a background or putting a border round an image. If you are already able to do these things, then you should have no trouble making your images look as you want them. We use PhotoShop, which is powerful and fairly easy to use but there are many graphics packages available. PaintShop Pro is widely available (earlier versions are free) for PCs, and Apple Works (formerly Claris Works) is bundled with most Apple Macs. You can also download freeware or shareware graphics packages from the Web. take2theweb automatically optimises every image you save, making the images the correct resolution for screens and thereby reducing the size of the files that your web site readers computers have to download. This means that your website, built using take2theweb will always work as fast as possible for your readers.