Images as Backgrounds/Pages

[islandcrazy]

I've been experimenting with BlueVoda and reading the forums a couple days on this topic and decided before I go any further I better make sure my crazy plan will work......

(i did get a vodahost account finally and am creating "fake" pages to learn this stuff--it's kinda fun, but nerve racking too!!)

First, I do alot of layouts and publishing REGULAR pages in Photoshop (not web pages). And it occurred to me, why couldn't I create my 800 x 600 (?) main page in photoshop with all my graphics, boxes, info, etc. and then save it as a .jpeg (optimized of course),

insert it in bv as a and image on a page---I guess it would be my "background template"

then create my "buttons" and links on top of that?

So, my entire page would be one merged, compressed image and hovering the mouse over the place I wrote "click here" (or whatever) would take them where I want them to go?

What i want to know is, would this be more "efficient" for viewing (loadtime) ? I know it would eaiser for me since all my graphics, etc. are already in photoshop---rather than moving them individually over to BV?

What would the drawback be to doing this? I would only have it on my "non products" pages.

Here is a thread where someone did something similar, but it is an older thread and I wasn't sure if they would still answer to it or not. Hope it is ok to bring this up in a new thread.

http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/adding-elements-your-website/8509-photoshop-background-button-help.html?highlight=background+image

thanks for your advice on this.

[Collectors-info]

Re: Images as Backgrounds/Pages

Hi, tried this route myself, but had a lot of grief trying to get the image size down to a descent size for loading. It can be done but when you reduce your page template it often reduces the quality of the image. See if it can be in gif format as this helps a bit. Then try limiting the type and amount of colours that you use on your template so you can drop down from 256 to about 20 or less, I found this helped a lot. When you look at most of the big sites & even this forums template, very simple & few colours are used to help with the loading times.

Chris.

[navaldesign]

Re: Images as Backgrounds/Pages

Your approach is correct. Create your template in Photoshop, the flatten it and save it as image for the Web (which will minimize the file size). Insert it in BV and resize it directly in BV to suit your page.

[islandcrazy]

Re: Images as Backgrounds/Pages

YeeHAw!!! I'm gonna give it a try! Thanks Naval and Chris!

Hey Chris, good point. I forgot that the different colors require more size...but maybe if I use "web colors only" setting in Photoshop while coloring the pages it will help.....I'm also going to create the page with the exact settings needed in PHOTOSHOP first so hopefully they will not need much more resizing in BV. Thanks for the tips!

[zigzag]

Re: Images as Backgrounds/Pages

Hi Islandcrazy,
You might also look at the "image map" on the top BV menu bar. This will allow you to create 'hotspots' for images. This might be worth playing with.
Yes, Naval is right, use "save for web" in photoshop, which cuts down on the image size, but not quite as much as PIXresizer.
I know Photoshop has a color picker, but there is another cool utility called Color Detector, which you can find on Andy128's site. Look for any forum posting by him (there are lots) to find his url

regards