72 dpi or 96 dpi - What's best for web images?

[Steve Hubbartt]

When exporting Xara work to jpegs I have been specifying 96 dots per inch (dpi). I have since read that 72 dpi is the optimum resolution for web pages images.?

Does anyone have a view on this..?

Thanks, Steve

[RTK]

Hello Steve,

A web browser does not care about dpi - it doesn't matter if an image is 72, 96, 150 or 890 dpi... The only thing that matters for web images is the pixel dimensions e.g. 500 pixels by 300 pixels.

That 72 or 96 dpi was probably come up as a guideline for people who have no idea about pixels.

Good luck.

[John Rayner]

If the web designer does not specify the height and width of the graphic, then the browser will draw the graphic to the pictures dimentions. 96 on a windoze and 72 on a mac... I think there are more windoze 'puters out there than macs. So... I design for windoze... 96DPI. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[RTK]

I don't get it, John? Why not think in pixels instead - it doesn't matter if it's a Mac or a PC?

Using html to scale down an image is a waste of bandwidth, and it will look ugly... Scaling up an image will look equally bad.

[gidgit]

yea,Risto is correct here... just stick to pixels, for images, as well for text.... all will see the same no matter the platform... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[John Rayner]

I have seen many websites (mostly WYSIWYG) that will use the broswer to scale the picture. Personally, I do not. I put the width and height of the actual graphic in the html to speed up building of the page.

Without the width and height dimension the broswer must load the graphic to see how big it is before it draws the page. I do everything I can to get my pages to load as quick as possible.

[RTK]

I also specify the size of the images in html.... but in pixels... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif Or rather, Dreamweaver does it for me.

Steve's question had to do with DPI - I fail to see where this comes in for web purposes? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[John Rayner]

"I have since read that 72 dpi is the optimum resolution for web pages images.?" - Steve

"I fail to see where this comes in for web purposes?" - Risto....

RTFQ... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif


Translated... (Read The Firetrucking Question) or a suitable expletitive. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Steve Hubbartt]

Thanks All

Here's the site/page that started it off..
http://www.susqu.edu/webcentral/perftips.cfm

Check out the statement under 'Pixel Resolution' - Does it make sense to you guys??

Steve

[gidgit]

Well, while this information, re 72 dpi, might have held some wieght in some discussions of yesteryear, todays system's monitors are more likely to display at around 96 dpi,but it should be suggested that for all intensive purposes, one should equate dpi to printing terms... pixels is all ya really need to worry about for the web, well that and compression/formats etc... hth's