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Image Editing Programs
> Jasc Paint Shop Pro is a very good, powerful, inexpensive graphics program for creating, and editing images for the web. Download the trial version and see how you like it.
> Adobe Photoshop is a professional image and graphics editing, altering, and photo touching program. It is very powerful and expensive compared to Paint Shop Pro. Photoshop is used for more then just web graphics, however. Try their trial version for free.
> Macromedia Fireworks is a professional web graphics image editing program that easily works with vector and bitmapped graphics. Unlike Photoshop, Fireworks provides advanced interactivity with images that will be posted on a website. Check out their trial version and learn more about the product at Macromedia's website.
FTP programs
Most web page creation programs come with FTP utilities. You might want to check out the one that is included with your other program. Or you could download one of these two FTP programs.
> WS_FTP and > CuteFTP both are strictly file transfer protocal programs. FTP programs usually falls down to personal preference. We recommend downloading them both and see which you like using best.
Other Resources
On the internet there are plenty of places which support people in creating graphics for their websites. These sites actually have pre-designed themes, buttons, background, and many other things to get you started on creating your personal web site.
Image pages
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~cookian/html/imagelib.html
http://www.mediabuilder.com/ds_icons_blocks_page_ae.html
http://www.istockphoto.com
Image searches
http://images.google.com/
http://www.altavista.com/sites/search/simage
GIF Animations
http://www.webdeveloper.com/animations/
http://www.animationlibrary.com/a-l/
http://www.animfactory.com/?AID=39297&PID=402666
http://www.theshockzone.com/
To learn more Search for "gif animations" in a search engine
Backgrounds
http://www.free-backgrounds.com/
http://www.eskimo.com/~physmith/Backgrounds.html
http://www.artistic-designers.com/bkgds/
For more backgrounds Search for "background textures" in a search engine
Webpage Buttons
http://www.iconbazaar.com/
http://www.freebuttons.com/
Once you have your site made, you can run it through site checking applications online that will tell you browser compatability, page load time, how well your graphics are compressed, the quality of your html programming and other things. Try running your site through at this site:
Optiview is mainly for graphics. It tells you page load times, and also shows you what images can be compressed more.
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