Images can be added to your website. Images include photos, graphics and diagrams. Adding images is one of the more confusing aspects of building a website. There are three key issues with images.
Digital Cameras, scanners and other imaging devices can create files that are very big. These images have a lot of pixels (the different coloured dots that make up an image) and take a long time to download on a website.
Images should be optimised to reduce their file size. Optimising means making the image smaller before loading it into your online folder. Images for a website are usually less than 50kb in file size. Reduced file sizes mean that more images can be stored on the server and pages are faster to load.
Read more about optimising images...
Image files for the web are usually .jpg or .gif other formats will work on some systems but these two are the usual format.
Read more about image file types...
Ensure you own the rights to an image before loading it onto the website. This means getting permission from the photographer or copyright holder. If you take the photograph yourself get written permission from any people featured in it.
If you download an image from the internet make sure you actually have the rights to use it. Royalty Free does not necessarily mean free to use, read the fine print.