Easing the Bloat! Part 1: Optimizing Your Images
Most CBTs these days include oodles of images to help make the content more visually appealing. While a lot can be said for implementing visuals, here are some tips to help keep the images from bloating your course:
Relevancy
Make sure the images you use are relevant to the information in the course, and not just being thrown in for decoration. Judicious use of images will help you keep the overall number of images in a project down…and keep the overall file size lower.
Remember, one great visual is better than four dull ones.
Image Formats
Use compressed image file formats, such as JPEGs, GIFs, and PNGs as opposed to using BMPs. While most CBT authoring software will automatically compress any attached images during publication, the native file will retain the original…and the original’s file size!
Resizing
Resize your images BEFORE importing them into your course. Many people will import a large image file into, say, Captivate, and use Captivate’s resizing tool to make the image fit the need. While that will result in a properly sized image, you still have all the file size overhead of the original image.
It’s much better to use Photoshop (or other image editing tool) to resize an image before importing it into your authoring tool. This way, you have the image size you want, with the smaller file size footprint.
Believe me, just using this technique can reduce the overall size of your projects pretty dramatically.
Image quality:
Image editing tools, such as Photoshop, allow you to change an image’s inherent quality. This means that you can ‘downgrade’ an image’s resolution. While this may sound bad, in practice, a downgraded image can look nearly as good as the original with a drastically reduced file size.
Here is an example of a very complex JPEG image that I downgraded:
As you can see, there really isn’t a big difference in the quality of the image, but the image on the left is almost FIVE times as large as the image on the right.
BTW, by both RESIZING and changing the IMAGE QUALITY in Photoshop, I was able to reduce the file size of the original image (which was 1749kb) down to only 116kb!
By using these techniques together over an entire course, you will dramatically optimize it. Your course will play better, you’ll have less storage needs, and your end users will have a better experience.
Next up… Part 2: Optimizing Your Audio
September 23, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I recently saw several e-learning examples, and the thing I took away from them the most was the power that a well-done graphic can have. Instead of “topping” the text, the graphic became the situtation – less words were needed,and the participants had more meaning and understanding of the scenario because of the strength of the visual.
September 24, 2009 at 3:47 pm
April, do you have any links to the eLearning examples? I’d love to see exactley what you’re talking about.
September 28, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Thanks for sharing these tips on working with images before adding them to your file/course. It’s been a topic our team has discussed quite a few times as we continue to look at more self-directed courses being used in different new-hire programs. Any thing we can do to make the files smaller and operate better will make sure Advisors are focusing on the content of the course and not how it performed.