Squash The Picture

What I forgot to mention when I talked about resizing images was the complete and utter confusion that is caused in the shape of pictures.

I though it was quite easy. If the picture space is shaped like a letterbox, you need a picture that is longer than it's heght.

If the picture looks like a lamppost, then you need a picture that is taller than it is wide.

Simple - right?

Wrong!

I don't get it - how difficult this actually is. For one guy he wanted a banner across the top of every page on the site - lots of different banners. The space we came down to was eventually around 700 pixels across, 150 pixels deep. Very obviously landscape format - and stretched at that! So he spent the next few weeks sending me portrait pictures to use. Amazing realy - he was actually sending pictures of landscapes in portrait format.

Another customer wanted the screen filling with a backdrop picture. Again, a screen is landscape format but he also kept sending portrait pictures and complaining that the tops / bottoms were missed. His solution was for me to squeeze the picture into the right shape:

"Can't you just squash the picture a little - you are a web designer!"

"Yes - here's the result."

"Why do they look so short and fat?!" - not good for a fashion site.

The big problem here is that if I have to allow a couple of days to keep bouncing pictures about on a small site, that would otherwise take me less than a day to put together, then the price is going up vastly more than necessary.

So look at the space available, see how wide and tall it is, and look at the picture you are providing.