What Quality for the Web?

I just finished an interface for the web and was wondering what quality I should save it as (maximum, high, medium...). I dont want it to take ages to load but quality is somewhat important. Its for a business site so it cant take forever, but it is fairly graphic intense.

Thanks
Adam

use file>save for web.

do not just save it as a jpeg or whatever. there are sliders and pull-down in that save for web thing that will let you preview how the image looks and also how large the file will be.

Deker's right. Sometimes a GIF will look better than a JPEG at an equivalent file size... sometimes *not*. Mess with all the options for both types of files so you can compare and then determine what's going to give you the biggest bang for the buck.

Thats what Im using, Ive sliced it all up. Im just curious to what quality the norm is. I know it gives you the load time at each size and everything, but is that as accurate as it says? I've saved one at maximum quality and one at high. Im going to upload both and test them. I was just kinda curious as to what everyone in here usually saves at so I can get an idea.

Thanks
Adam

i usually use 60% when saving jpeg photos. if it's and interface element or something it is different sometimes. And there isn't that much optimizing you can do with gif... other than in the creation stage of your graphics.

you might also want to consider a lil bit of blur when u save for the web too
like 0.01 % or more

Yea, I saved one at 60%. In all honesty, it looks no different than the one I saved at 80%. Ill probably use the 60% one. Zyconium, what does blurring it do? Thats interesting, I would of never thought to do that.

Thanks
Adam

My general rule of thumb is I push the image quality down on a jpg until the quality is no longer acceptable then move it up 5 or so...I usually end up in the 45-55 range...All depends on the image.

If your image had a lot of pixels-information, and not so much colours, use GIF. If you´ve got a lot of colour-information (a gradient or such), adn not that much pixel-info, use JPG.

hrm.

you should really be saving interface parts as .gif unless they are photos.

how I save a gif.

file>>save for web

push the slider down to 2 colors, bump it up until it's appearance is acceptable. Remember, some folks still don't know how to change their resolution to 1280x1024 @ 32bpp