I’m using Express v5.4.2. My website has 3 pages each with 12 thumbnails. Clicking on the thumbnail opens a larger version of the picture within the same page. The larger pictures were generated in Photoshop at 72 dpi and saved as a medium image quality jpeg. The pages load fast enough but it takes a painfully long time before clicking on a thumbnail loads the larger picture. I’m using a rollover action clicking to a target image.
as far as I can see here, the page is loading acceptable fast.
Hmm - Express is making me uncertain, cause I do not know what it can do or not. A good idea might be to separate image and image-caption and wrap both in a group to apply the target-layer stuff (and there we are - layer and Express??) The idea behind is to concentrate on the images and not to take care that much on the pixel-text appearance which is anyway SEO unfriendly).
I stumbled upon the following page:
and had a play with one of your images (compressed it from 200k to 31k). But it is absolutely you, that has to decide whether quality comes up to your expectations or probably not.
Not particularly slow to load here but you could adjust the output quality of your images in the FW inspector to reduce file sizes a bit.
Select the graphic and look in the Inspector under the 3rd Tab - adjust the quality slider and preview.
The default output for the Document is set in File>Document Setup under the Graphics Tab. Standard is (I think) 85%, progressive for jpeg files.
If you set it in there then every image you create from that point on will use those settings. Existing ones will retain whatever they were set to before.
You can adjust images on an individual basis - I would leave your thumbs as they are and maybe tweak the larger ones.
standard is 75% which is a little less up to my liking (recognizing some artefacts? pixelate there). Lower than 85% as you suggest I wouldn’t go - just for protocol.
Thank you Thomas and Dave. Playing with with the quality setting speeds it up a bit, but I now suspect it is my older machine and connection speed that bedevils me. I’ll play with separating text and graphics.
Someone on here (sorry don’t remember who) suggested this site for testing the speed of loading: https://www.pingdom.com/
I presume it would test the speed of your page regardless of your connection and/or machine specs. I’m not positive about that, but it might be worth a try.