To Size Or Not To Size

Yep! That's the question. Well, ok, maybe it should be more like, "to WHAT size should the background image be"? And the answer is to cover your whole web page, of course!

Just how big is that? Well, most commonly, viewer screen resolutions are set to a width of 640 pixels. But a setting of 800 wide is becoming more common, and there are even a few set to 1024! So, in order to make a background which can be viewed by the most people, you'll want to determine what type background you want. Solid? A left border, or top or right side border? Once you know this, you create a background image. For Mr. Bigexec's site, we'll make a background which has a top border.

Before you go creating an image 1024 pixels wide, remember, backgrounds are tiled! The image only needs to be a fraction of that width, since the browser will tile it across the screen anyway. So, open your PSP and create a new image sized at 20pixels wide, and 1000pixels long.
[ Review how to make a new image file here ]

Yes, that's a long image, but, if you make your top-bordered background too short, you may end up with the "border" showing again the middle of the web page. Remember, backgrounds are tiled. Here's an example of a top-border background that is too short:

As you can see, the top border of the page looks great. But Mr. Bigexec wouldn't appreciate his "big" message being obscured by borders in the middle of his pages!

In your PSP with your new long image, choose the selection tool set to:

• Rectangle
• No feather
• Antialiased checked

Cool KROW Clue

If your image is a bit hard to see because it's so large, go to the menu and choose "View" and then "Zoom In By 1" (or how ever big you need!)

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