Ask the Stablegirl: Graphics and HTML Questions and Answers
Click on a question to see the answer. If you have questions of your own, send them to me.
Q: I use a light-colored tile image for the
background of my page. When the page loads, the
background starts out as the default grey and then the
background tile pops in suddenly. Is there any way to
make the background fade in more smoothly? - A.P.
A: Indeed there is! The trick is to specify both a
background color AND a background image, like this:
<BODY
BGCOLOR="FFFFFF"
BACKGROUND="image.gif" TEXT="xxxxxx"
LINK="xxxxxx" VLINK="xxxxxx">
This way the page will
start out with a white background and there won't be any
dramatic color shift when the background tile loads.
Important note: I recommend that you ALWAYS
specify a background color when using a background image.
That way visitors who choose not to load your images will
still be able to read your content. (Keep in mind that
even if you've made sure that your text is readable
against the default grey, users who have changed the
default colors of their browser may be unable to read
your text.) I've seen far too many sites that were
totally unreadable unless the background image was
loaded...
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Q: I've tried saving images from the Web by
right-clicking on them and saving them to my hard drive.
When I try to use them on a page, though, they don't show
up. Also, when I try to view the images from my hard
drive, my graphics viewer says that it doesn't recognize
the image format. What's going on? - Anonymous AOL User
A: This is a problem unique to the AOL
browser. Somewhere in your AOL settings there's an option
for "show compressed images" or something like
that. It's purpose is to make images load faster by
compressing them further. In the process, though, it
changes their format slightly so that they can no longer
be downloaded as gifs or jpgs. Instead, your computer
downloads them as an unknown image type (.art). If you
uncheck that option, you'll be able to save images
normally. The images you see on the Web will also look
better.
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Q: How do I resize a transparent GIF? -Mike P.
A: To resize a transparent GIF you need a paint program of some kind- Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Corel PhotoPaint, etc.. When you open the image in your paint program you'll notice that the background is no longer transparent. (It's probably grey, although it could be any color.) It should look something like this:
Before you can resize the image, you have to replace the background with the original background color (or a very similar color), otherwise your image will end up with a non-transparent grey background. Most of the downloadable GIFs on the Web were designed for either a light or a dark background (you can tell which by looking at the "halo" around the image), so making the background white (for a light-background image) or black (for a dark-background image) will probably work fine. The example above was designed for a light background, so I'll use white.
There are lots of ways to change a color, depending on what program you're using, but nearly any program should have a Paint Bucket tool for filling in large areas. By choosing an appropriate color and applying the Paint Bucket to the transparent areas, you should be able to restore the background color without otherwise affecting the image.
Once the background color has been restored, you can resize the GIF just as you would any other GIF, by converting to RGB color (increasing the color depth in Paint Shop Pro), resizing the image, then converting back to 256-color (Indexed Color) mode.
If you want the resized image to be transparent, you'll have to re-select the transparent color(s) when you save the image.
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Q: How did you create your embossed buttons?
(several readers)
A: I began each button with a completed
graphic, then used Photoshop's Emboss filter get the 3D
effect. Then I pasted the graphic onto a solid-colored
rectangle and used a button-making filter to bevel the
edges. Then I removed all of the color (using the
Desaturate command) and used the Colorize command to give
the button a uniform color.
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Q: How can I learn HTML? (several readers)
A: There are literally hundreds of free HTML
tutorials on the Web. Here are links to just a few of
them. (These links will open in a new window so that you
can return to this list.)
http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/
http://www.cwru.edu/help/introHTML/toc.html
http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/teachingtool/
http://dis.dozier.com/rookies.html
http://www.primeshop.com/html/jumpidx.htm
http://www.stanford.edu/~ttorres/Internet/toc.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4977/index.html
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/5345/
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/
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© Melissa
Bradshaw, 1999. All rights reserved.
