images
Image Size
We use three sizes/formats 95 percent of the time (please do not deviate from them):
500px HORIZONTALLY ORIENTED run the full width of the entry. Do not use anything larger than 500px, as it will break the layout. Keep them as shallow as possible, avoiding heights of more than 375px. (If you’re starting with a standard image size produced by most cameras, reducing an image size proportionally to 500px wide should scale the height to 375px automatically. But any crops you can do to decrease the height are appreciated.)
250px HORIZONTALLY ORIENTED images are floated to the right of the entry. (More on how to do this later.)
200px HORIZONTALLY or VERTICALLY ORIENTED pix are also floated right within the entry.
Use your judgment as to whether you want to do 250px or 200px for horizontally oriented images. We generally prefer 200px images unless it’s difficult to “read” what’s going on in the image at 200px width.
Other sizes exist but are used in special situations (This applies mostly to queue editors):
150px-WIDE BOOK COVERS are used for books and are floated right.
40px SQUARE are used for our “Quick Bites” entries and are floated left.
File Size
Optimize your images for the web before uploading them. To keep load times short on our pages, we shoot for images of no more than 50k in size. If you have Photoshop, use the Save for Web & Devices option to optimize your image.
If you don’t have Photoshop, there are a couple of web-based options: Picnik.com and Snipshot.com
Image File Names
Please use the following convention: YYYYMMDDimagename.jpg or YYYYMMDDimagename.gif or YYYYMMDDimagename.png
Example: 20090204pizzaslice.jpg
