Chapter 18. Multimedia and the Web: Purposing Pixels for the Screen

It's pretty clear that we've spent most of our professional lives focused on preparing images that are destined for a printing press. But the times they are a-changing, and one of the most common uses for Photoshop today is preparing images for screen display, whether in an interactive multimedia presentation or a World Wide Web site. And just as there are techniques for optimizing an image for paper, there are methods you can use to ensure good quality on screen (as well as tips for preparing your on-screen image efficiently).

In this chapter, we take a look at several important issues you need to consider when preparing images for multimedia or the Web, including deciding on a graphic file format and dealing with indexed-color images. Note that we don't discuss all the cool ways you can make funky buttons, rules, bullets, and other page elements; there are other great books on the market that include those techniques.