ADDING ANIMATION TO YOUR WEB PAGES
NOTE: This Will Take A Minute Or Two To Load But It's Worth The Wait!
By Ralph D. Thomas
Adding animation to web pages have some high advantages and a few disadvantages.
Animation makes your web pages come alive. They attract attention and people
will come back for more. Animation lets to get added to "cool site"
lists which gives you more exposure. There are some disadvantages. First
of all, I'm sorry to say that not everyone will see your animation simply
because not all web browsers will support it. Secondly, it's important
to remember that the larger your graphics files are, the longer it's going
to take for your pages to load.
One of the better done web sites inside the PI Mall is the DAH Investigations
site.
It looks very sharp. The owner of these pages asked me to create some animation.
Here is how the difference looks:
The very good looking 3-D Graphic Banner of DAH
The graphic banner after a four frame animation GIF 89a was added
INFORMATION ON THIS WEB SITE: CHECK IT OUT
D.A.H. PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
http://www.pimall.com/dah/dah.html
D. A. H. INVESTIGATORS: Daniel A. Hodge: Lawyers Building, 3206 Warsaw
Ave., Cincinnatti, OH 45205 . Phone: (513)249-2404. Fax: (513)471-0420.
Criminal and Insurance Investigations. (1-9-96-2-R)
E-Mail: DEYE007@aol.com
There are a few tricks to this many of which I have learned through
the college of hard-knocks (trial and error) The first thing you must know
is that browsers that don't support animation such as the GIF 89a will
still load the graphics. Some of these browsers will load the first frame
and some of them the last. It's important for these frames to look good.
Secondly, you should use programs such as HVS Color ($99.00) from Adobe
and HVS WebFocus ($129.00) Both of these programs are Photoshop plug ins.
HVS color will reduce a 24-bit RGB image into an 8-bit image without any
visible loss of quality to the naked eye. HVS WebFocus gives you the ability
to compress JPEG files 2-4 times greater than standard compression and
gives you the ability to build animated JPEG files right in Photoshop.
CLICK HERE FOR ANOTHER EXAMPLE: AM/PM INVESTIGATIONS
Getting these GIF and JPEG frames as small as you can are very important.
remember that on a ten frame animation, you have ten times the amount of
volume that has to load compared to the same rendering on a still graphic.
If you want to try you hand at making your own animated GIF 89a, you can
find out all about it and download free software to do it at:
SOFTWARE
FOR MAKING ANIMATED GIFS 
http://www.reiworld.com/royalef/toolbox.htm#programs
Want to make your own animated logo, icon or other GIF? Here is the
place to get the free software to do it.
If you want a professional to do it, click here.
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