Saving for web

I have been asked a few times recently how I save my layouts to post them in galleries. So, I thought I'd post it on here for anyone would like to know. :)

There are, of course, a few different methods. I will just share mine. After saving the file as a layered file (I case we need to change anything) I resize my image to 600x600 pixels. I keep my resolution at 300 ppi because that saves the quality somewhat. You can also choose Bicubic sharper because changing the size can diminish the quality slightly.

For PSE 4: Image>resize>image size (or alt-ctrl-i)

Then I choose Save for web (file>save for web)

It will open a new screen with a before and after image of your layout. Change the quality to high. Below the preview of the new image, you can see how large the file will be. Most galleries require that the image uploaded be less than 150kb. If your image is higher than that, you can change the size in this screen. I either change mine to 500x500 or 550x550. Be sure to click apply or it won't change it when it saves.

After hitting okay, a new box will come up where you name your file. I don't really know how most people name their LOs, but I thought I would share with you my naming method! :) I save the original, layered LO by the date of the pictures. For instance, the LO I am working on right now has pictures from December 15th so I named the file 12-15-07. I love this method because I can easily put my pages in order and find what I'm looking for. So when naming my web files, I just add a -web to the end, so it would be 12-15-07-web. That way, all of my files for that particular LO will be next to each other so I always know if I have a web version or a version for printing.

I'm getting distracted. :) I guess that's really all. Recently I deleted almost all of my -web files because once they are in the galleries and/or on my blog, I don't really need them on my computer anymore. But, they don't take up too much space anyway.

Like I said at the beginning, there are multiple ways to do this--this is just the one I prefer. Some people change the resolution to 72. Others don't save for web, just save it as a flattened jpg at lower quality.

I have some other tips I'll try to post later!