[MarkA]

Chris, some of the graphics on this site's main page look less than ideal, and I took some time to optimize them. I sent you a cleaned up version of the logo, also I sent you true grayscale copies of the "news links" and "information pages" images, to get rid of color fringing, and a transparent version of "Click Here". I hope you look at and consider using these. I just did a test and inserted them into the main page in Dreamweaver and previewed in IE, and I found that it looks much better. Just a suggestion - but one I feel would really help the page.

 

[Chris Blount]

Thanks Mark. I haven't received anything yet but will keep an eye out.

 

[Steve Mehs]

Mark, would you mind sending me them too, Thanks

 

[John Corn]

Mark, u da man, you really must enjoy the graphics part.

 

[MarkA]

I'm resending my samples to [email protected] plus you guys individually.

 

[John Corn]

Thanks Mark, I enjoyed looking at them, you do very nice work.
Your very good with computer grahics.

 

[Chris Blount]

Mark,

Thanks for the new graphics. After doing a side-by-side comparison, the DBSTalk logo definitely looks better. I've already uploaded that. As far as the other ones, they do look better but I need JPG versions of all of them. I don't want to use PNG's. Thanks

 

[MarkA]

Why don't you want to use PNG's Chris? PNG's are smaller for those situation. PNG's are LZ80 based - the most efficient lossless compression. They don't have the bit depth restrictions of GIFs. They support true greyscale - which GIFs don't really (the reason for the color fringing on your home page) (it can be done with a custom GIF color palette). They don't have the color fringing and blockiness issues of JPEG.
Overall, for button graphics (not photos) PNGs are in every way superiour to the other formats. Their smaller, more efficient, and better looking. There is no good reason not to use PNGs. That said, I will try to make GIF versions (like you have now), but first I'll need software that can write GIF and also make a custom color palette (GIMP can make a custom color palette, but can't write GIF I think there's a plugin somewhere to do this. I'll try to find it. JPEGs of those graphics would look worse than the GIFs you have now, and would be even bigger (I think, I'll try to mess with some custom subsamplings - that's why I was able to make such a clean JPEG of the logo - it's using a nonstandard (but still readable by all JPEG decoders) subsampling)

 

[MarkA]

Nope, JPEGs of those are out of the question. I could make them true grey scale, and even fairly clean, but they they weren't much better than the current ones, and they were a LOT bigger. My suggestion for the transparent "click here" is not possible with JPEG - JPEG has no alpha channel. GIF has a 1-bit alpha channel. PNG supports an 8-bit alpha channel, but no web browsers will alpha-blend That's my (as a web designer) #1 wish for new versions of all the major web browsers - Alpha Blending. Then I could finally use my PNGs with 8bit alpha channels to make truely incredible web graphics!

 

[MarkA]

PS, to anyone who doubts how much of a difference alpha blending would make to the potential quality of web graphics - just look at the icons in Windows XP. Most of them use alpha blending.

 

[MarkA]

BTW, if you doubt I'm right, I should point out that it's illegal for any US Department of Defense website to use GIFs (with the exception of GIF89a - Animated GIF; it should also be noted this graphic standard isn't actually followed - you don't have to look too hard to find GIFs). Don'tcha think there's a reason? There is. Lot's of them. Avoiding GIF means:

1.) Avoiding lawsuits from Unisys
2.) Promoting the use of the far better looking, 24-bit (or 25-bit for transparent, or 32-bit for alpha-blended - but those aren't supported by most (if any?) web browsers) lossless PNGs.
3.) Reducing the use of internet bandwidth (LZW is horribly inefficient)

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Ok someone get me a tranqualizer gun for Mark.

Mark you did a great job on the logos and stuff that you sent us in the email. I think all the mods agree on that.

There is a problem with png files which is why we can't use them.

1) For some reason VBBS in some places supports them and in other places ignores them and or turns the PNG files into black boxes.
2) People on Macs or using Dishplayers can not always view png files (I also can not see them when I use the Opera browser)

I agree jpg and gif are not the best file formats but they are the most widely accepted. Our server is kind of smart and runs gzip which compresses everything down then your browser uncompresses it this way we conserve bandwidth. (And this is all invisable to you the user)

Since we now pay for all our bandwidth we are very bandwidth conceous, but we want to keep everything up and running for everyone who wants to see it, just not those who are able to see it.

Its nothing against you, your work or even png, we just want to make sure everyone can fully use all the features of DBStalk.

Thanks for your understanding.

 

[MarkA]

Yes, I kinda understood that. I am still trying to find a GIF plugin for GIMP, since it can do custom color palettes (no, I can't afford Photoshop ) But Opera SHOULD support PNG (I haven't used it in awhile, but I'd be shocked if it didn't. I'm downloading Opera right now to check this out. If this is true, I need to see this) and Macs definately do support PNG. I don't know about the DISHPlayer - but I'm suprised Microsoft missed such an important feature (if you look around on the Internet, PNGs are quickly gaining popularity over GIF)

 

[Chris Blount]

I will only use JPG's or GIF's for the very reason Scott stated. So everyone can see them.

 

[MarkA]

I respect that because it is common for clients to have requests like that. I would like to point out that not everybody can see JPEGs or GIFs... (yes I actually people KNOW people (okay, one person) still using Lynx. PNG is actually incredibly common, and there is no current browser that doesn't support it (except possibly WebTV - that I do not know, but WebTV doesn't support a lot of functions. To limit yourself to what WebTV supports would be an incredibly stupid and limiting move given almost nobody uses WebTV). I am looking for a GIF encoder plugin for GIMP. Just because you might be interested, here are some websites using PNGs:

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/
http://www.fatchucks.com/corruptcds/
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/
http://www.burnallgifs.org

But anyways, I've found the GIF plugin for GIMP, but I need a new build of GIMP. I'm downloading all of that right now.

 

[MarkA]

GIFs sent that are about 1/4 the size of the current ones and look better