Web Designer's Guide to Graphics: Png, Gif & Jpeg

Rating:
Summary: My Book of Choice on Web Graphics Theory
Review: Timothy Webster provides a superior treatment of web graphics fundamentals, using clear and practical examples. Writing for both Windows and Mac, his Web Designer's Guide to Graphics first lays down a tight review of graphics file formats, monitors, color models, bit depth, resolution, palettes, anti-aliasing, compression and interlacing. Not stopping there, he gives pragmatic examples of when to use PNG, GIF and JPEG formats.

The book's one major weakness is that many of the color screen shots used do not hold up well when printed. The occasional ineffective 1:1 screen shot is used to point out details which would only be recognizable if printed at the same size as its screen display counterpart. This problem, present in many of the current web design books, could be easily resolved by zooming in on the screen to show the slight differences in detail.

That being said, out of all the many books that are available on web graphics, there are none that I've found which are more comprehensive and accurate than this one.

Web Graphics Instructor
Bellevue Community College
Bellevue Washington