"Best" type of pictures to use

[carltonb]

I know that the term "Best" is subjective.

In order to assist me in uploading pictures to my site, what considerations might I want to take into account.

File size, picture size, etc.

Thanks
carltonb

[kegobeer]

You should always take into account who visits your site.  Dial-up users will suffer if you have huge file sizes.

Do you really need a 2048x1536, 72pixel/inch, 2mb image displayed on your site, or will a 640x480 and 50k image do the same thing?

Large file sizes take up a lot of room and take a while to display.  Large dimensions and bit depths use up a lot of server resources during resizing operations.

There are a lot of things to take into account when having an online photo gallery.  Those are just a few.  In the end it's all up to what you want your visitors to see.

Personally, I resize all my photos to 640x480 before I ftp them to my site.  I find the resolution is good enough for me, and it keeps the file sizes small, which means a lot to my family members who don't have broadband connections.  I don't bother with watermarking or attempting to prevent people from hotlinking my images - if I cared that much I wouldn't bother posting them in the first place.

[Tranz]

Even on a fast connection, huge files take too long to load, and with the limitation of monitor resolutions, the difference in quality doesn't justify the extra size and time it takes to download.

[kegobeer]

Some people use Coppermine with PayPal to sell original images, where a huge filesize can't be avoided.  But since Coppermine can be used with other file types, like ZIP files, I would create a [ url=http:// ] Image link [ /url ] in the reduced quality image's description that links to the uncompressed original zip file.  I'm sure it could be routed thru a paypal script somehow.