Media & Communication (Computer Applications/Desktop ...



Foundation Studies (Media and Communications)

Computer Applications for Desktop Publications B

“A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Working with background images

For right now, aim for a size of 1200 by 900 pixels.

To get pictures of this size already, all that you need to do is to go to Google images and search for “1200 by 900 pixels size.” This will give you about six pages of images to start with.

Remember – KISS.

You can also go to and download some of their wallpapers. I am not sure if this will be accessed from the RMIT computer lab. We will see.

Here is an example of one of their abstract backgrounds that you can download for free.

The advantage and disadvantage of DesktopNexus is that it automatically resizes the

Working with images that may need to be resized

The main concerns for this week are to:

• Insert images in a .jpg format into web pages.

• Save the file so that the size is small but it still looks good on a monitor.

• Understand that web pages use a resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch).

• KISS – Keep It simple!

Resizing from a large size to a smaller size (taking pixels out)

There are several programs that you can use here. They vary from easy to hard in terms of the time and effort involved.

An easy program to use is the Microsoft Office Picture Manager (Start/Programs/MS Office/Microsoft Office Tools/ Microsoft Office Picture Manager)

1. Save your original file in a folder called something like original images. Give the picture a name that indicates to you it is the original image. NEVER USE THE ORIGINAL!!! You look like a complete idiot calling the person that hired you to create the website and asking them to send you another copy of the image that you have just ruined.

2. Make a copy of your original image and store it somewhere separate from your web project folder.

3. Make the changes that you want to and need to to the image in Office Picture Manager and then save them as a .jpg into the images folder in your web project folder.

4. Office Picture Manager will let you easily work with changes such as resizing, compression, red eye removal, brightness, contrast, cropping, rotating and flipping.

5. Pick a few images to work with and experiment with the Office Picture Manager Program. The advantage of using it it that any computer that has Office on it will have Picture Manager. Not every one has Photoshop on their computer.

An intermediate program to use is called Picasa by Google. All that you need is a Google account and to be able to download it to your computer (we cannot do this in the computer lab).

And last but not least is Photoshop – the industry standard. 90% of your work can be done with Office Picture Manager and with Picasa. But for that 10% of your work where you need Photoshop, then it is worth the time and effort put into learning Photoshop.

We will be getting a bit more into Photoshop over the next few weeks.

Resizing from a smaller size to a larger size (adding pixels in)

When you resize from a small image to make it bigger, pixels get added to fill in the spaces created. The result can be an image that looks really terrible! This is where Photoshop comes in handy.

Here is one procedure that you can try.



What do I do with my images now?

Funny that you should ask that!

1. Put them into your images folder that you created inside your Web Design Project folder.

2. Use drag and drop to place them on your web page.

Anything else?

You can make more adjustments by using the Dreamweaver Properties box at the bottom of the page – height, width, vertical space, horizontal space, alignment, alternate text and a whole bunch of other things that you can’t shake a stick at. That means a lot of other features. But don’t worry. You will find out more about these as we go along.

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