Graphics Nightmare

[rry2k]

I am trying to create a website for our church and I am having a graphics nightmare. Please help. Look at

http://www.lifechangingministries.net/lcm.htm.

Then look at

http://www.lifechangingministries.net/lcm1.htm.

One in distorted and the other has an ugly green color that I can't seem to change. The only difference between these two pages is: one has img4.gif and the other is img4.JPG.

Thanks alot for the help..Russ

 

[WartookMan]

I'm guessing one of two problems:
A) The GIF image was uploaded as TeXT (not BINary).
B) I realise that the two images have the correct extension that you want (ie JPG/GIF), however, when you saved the GIF did you remember to change the encoding in the dropdown in your graphics program (ie from "JPEG - JFIF Compliant (*.jpg, *.jif, *.jpeg)" to "CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format (*.GIF)").

You might want to reopen the JPG file and "Save As..." - making sure you have the correct encoding.

Hope this helps.

Pete.


Web Developer & Aptrix / Lotus Workplace Web Content Management (LWWCM) Specialist
w:

http://www.lclimited.co.uk/

e: Pete.Raleigh(at)lclimited.co.uk

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

The "ugly green colour" is actually in the JPG itself. To remove it, load the image into a graphics package, and fill over the background colour with whatever colour you want, then re-save it. Note that you use transparency with JPG files.

The GIF seems to be interlaced. Try saving as a non-interlaced GIF (Using the GIF89a standard, if you get the option).

Hope this helps,
Dan

 

[rry2k]

OK. First, I used FTP from DOS to upload. The ISP that was chosen for me doesn't have a nice vehicle for uploading. 2nd, can you recomend a package to change the background? When I first uploaded and saw the distorted vs. I went to paint and did a save as JPG. I have photoshop but it's not allowing me to change the background. I'm obviously a novice at graphics so go slow. Thanks..Russ

 

[WartookMan]

> Note that you use transparency with JPG files.
JPG files don't support transparency but support 24 bit color. GIFs do support transparency, however, they are limited to only 8 bit color. PNG supports both 24 bit and transparency (I believe).

When uploading the GIF image via FTP, did you enter "BIN" to switch to binary transfer mode? I've seen this type of effect before when uploading in ASCII ("ASC") mode.

I used photoshop to save the file as a GIF (from the original JPG - img4.jpg), and it looks ok. After inserting it into a webpage, it still looks ok.

Try re-uploading using Binary transfer.

Pete.


Web Developer & Aptrix / Lotus Workplace Web Content Management (LWWCM) Specialist
w:

http://www.lclimited.co.uk/

e: Pete.Raleigh(at)lclimited.co.uk

 

[deecee]

gifs arent necessarily the best to use for all web images. For pictures and images you want to use jpegs -- they are a lossy form of images but still keep file sizes relatively small. Gifs are best used for images you create. Take for example a 120x120 square -- half white and half blue -- a jpeg would be over 4kb while a gif would be under 400bytes. This is because gifs -- well heres a link that would explain this much better and would save me much typing

http://www.marlenehollander.com/articlegifjpeg.html

Listen All I ask is that You close out a Post You Started!!!!

 

[rry2k]

Hi Wart,

No binary switch. I'm not sure on the syntax. Mine was:
put C:\lcm\img4.gif

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

> Note that you use transparency with JPG files.

In my mind, I was thinking "don't"... and when I read the post back, my eyes saw "don't"... But the word never made it in ;o)

Note that you don't use transparency with JPG files.

*grin*

Dan

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

For the binary FTP, before typing "put xxx...", you'd type "bin", then hit return. that puts ftp into binary mode.

You can download Paint Shop Pro free from

http://www.jasc.com

if you need a good shareware image editing packaage. IMHO, v8 is really bloated... If you can get it, stick with v7. You don't need any of the extra brushes, clipart, bloatware, etc that they include.

Incidentally, if ever saving from Photoshop, always be sure to use the "Save for Web" option. Just using "Save" to save a JPG results in a lot of extra data being saved to the file, increasing its size. You can also use a great tool called "jStrip Lite" to remove all extraneous data from whole directories of JPEGs.

There is also a document bug in some versions of IE that cause them to solidly crash a Windows box when viewing some JPEG filed saved using the "Save" option of Photoshop. Using "Save for Web" stops this happening.

Hope this helps,
Dan

 

[jimoblak]

How about freeware instead of shareware/commercial apps? I was working with a version of GIMP the other day and I believe it had a 'save for web' function like Photoshop.

GIMP works on Windows/*nix/OSX

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[rry2k]

BillyRay,

Thanks alot and God Bless you. The binary switch did the trick and were on the way. Thanks to everyone else also. For my next trick I need to set up an email link for a prayer page. When the user clicks the link, the outlook dialog should come up with to and cc filled in and subject, if you or anyone could help with that it would be great.

Thanks..Russ

 

[jimoblak]

<a href="mailto:you@mail.com?subject=Your%20subject%20line&cc=someoneelse@mail.com">mail me</a>

I am guessing on the CC part.

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

I think you're right on that... Believe most mail packages also accept "bcc" and "body", too.

Dan

 

[WartookMan]

You don't need to URL encode your options - the browser will do that for you... although it doesn't hurt.

<a href="mailto:you@mail.com?subject=This is the subject line&to=me@mail.com&cc=another@mail.com&body=This is the body">Email me</a>

There are a couple of issues with this type of link though. The first, is ensuring that the user has a program associated with "mailto" links. This is enabled through:
Tools | Internet Options... | Programs | Email (Dropdown).

It works pretty well with Outlook, but you may be better creating an online form for users to enter information into directly - there are plenty examples on the web for ASP/PHP/CGI-Perl.

I have a very basic form on my website for requesting information:

http://www.lclimited.co.uk/contact/cu_request.asp

This was written in ASP (obviously) and I fill in the "To" field on the server, to avoid spammers from using my site - they can only spam to me.

The second is avoiding email scrapers from "scraping" your email address. They do this by requesting pages, and scanning for the "mailto:..." string. You could use:
A) Use the HTML encoding equivalent of the "@", "."
B) Use JavaScript to write out the email address in bits
...but you might be better with the online form.

Hope this helps.

Pete.


Web Developer & Aptrix / Lotus Workplace Web Content Management (LWWCM) Specialist
w:

http://www.lclimited.co.uk/

e: Pete.Raleigh(at)lclimited.co.uk

 

[BabyJeffy]

All very good points WartookMan. Personally I would push for building a special page containing a form.

The user fills in the form and clicks the "send" button to send you an email. Since this is processed "server-side" you need never reveal the true email address that it is sent to (avoiding the need to try and hide your email address using tricks like escaping characters etc).

This bypasses the issue that some people don't have an email program linked to the mailto: protocol. It's a small number of people... but with such a clean solution available... it seems a pity not to include them too.

All the best,
Jeff

 

[jimoblak]

Some sites that I work with require the level of authentication that you get from sending mail with your own client - - instead of a web form which can be sent anonymously. Sometimes you have got to post an email address on a web page.

WartookMan suggested 'A) HTML encoding equivalent of @' but as a fan of email address rippers, this is not a sure thing. They are getting smarter.

So far, I have not seen an email ripper defeat his suggestion of 'B) javascript'. Here's an example:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
  //<!--
    document.write ('<a href="mailto:')
    document.write ('user'+'@'+'ma')
    document.write ('il'+'.'+'com')
    document.write ('user'+'@'+'m')
    document.write ('ail'+'.'+'com'+'</a>')
  //-->
</script>

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[BabyJeffy]

Picklefish *grin* I use the exact same idea for my own personal website... but I make it a little smaller... try this modification:

<a href="javascript://" onclick="document.location='mail'+'to:bo'+'b@som'+'ewher'+'e.c'+'om'">Email Bob</a>

Cheers,
Jeff

 

[jimoblak]

Yes, my example was definitely overkill but I would break your example into at least 2 lines. It will not be long before email rippers get wise. It is not too difficult for a regular expression to pick out the concatenation instances of '+'

Throwing in at least one line return will challenge the email rippers.

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[rry2k]

Thanks to all for the great suggestions and code.