Website Resolution?

I'll be redesigning my website soon and was wondering what resolution to use, 1024x768 or 800x600? I'm leaning towards the larger size. What's considered standard nowadays? I figure I'll design the pages in PS and then bring those into Dreamweaver. Thanks for any suggestions or advice you can share!

Any suggestions/advice about how to create an easy to maintain website, i.e. easy to add new images into galleries so they show up first in the stack?

Any good links out there for website design you care to share?

I'm very novice at website design!

Cory, As a website designer, I'd go somewhere in the middle; 800 is too small, but 1024 might be a bit big depending on who you plan to have look at your site. I find myself building websites in the 850-950 pixel wide range.

As to ease of updating a website, there are quite a few threads on here that suggest good template companies that make it easy to update your website once you've got it built. Custom building isn't cheap, but the updates could eat you alive unless you have a nice trust fund to depend on! That is, unless you don't plan to add very many photos to your site once it's built.

Hope this helps,

Nancy

Cory,

I use a table that is 900 pixels wide to hold the content: the background is set to 100%. This seems to be a good compromise. 1024 might be too big and may cause someone to have to scroll horizontally--a big no-no.

The type of site that is the easiest to add images to is a database driven site. Your images are uploaded to the database using a form similar to the one you use to upload images to NPN. The images are stored in a database and are called up by code.

Your pages would contain some html for the 'grapical' part, and code for the 'data' part. Some of the templates available for photographers use this approach. Your server would have to be configured with either MySQL or MSSQL and be capapble of running code.

My site is HTML and I can say that updating it with new images, etc. is something of a pain. The next generation of my site will be database driven, for sure.

So, you might want to research some templates, or cast about for someone to design your site, or learn how to build a data driven site yourself.

-PB

Cory: in January 2008, 1024x768 was the majority resolution, with 1280x1024 coming second. 800x600 is still used by <10% of browsers.

More stats here .

I agree with all comments, from sizing to using a database-driven website. A max size of 955 pixel wide will accommodate the "extras" in browsers, such as scroll bars, etc.

For those who don't care to immerse themselves in website design, I always recommend Smugmug. Fairly customizable and it's database-driven, among other features. Very user-friendly too. I've added Smugmug to my online arsenal ...
http://jessespeer.smugmug.com/gallery/4254944#251287554

And of course, I always recommend ... http://www.widerangegalleries.com

Hi Cory,
I have been using GoLive & like it fine, but recently I have built a site for a client using Yahoo's 'Sitebuilder'. (A big improvement over their program 2 years ago.) For about $10 a month you can have your Domain Name & Hosting, plus email to the domain name. (Very professional looking) Also, site isn't Yahoo branded - people won't know how you built it or the Host. Templates are pretty good, but most important you can customize to fit the page usage. Templates for customer contact or questions-comments are very good, plus they can be customized & they can be directed to whatever email you wish. Using Sitebuilder is like creating a page in photoshop or some graphic program. You don't need to know anything about most of the html jargon. I am more of a designer/artist than html guru. The creators have really created a User Friendly site builder. Their live help by phone is very good. You are only obligated for 3 months at a time - so if you grow in expertise & prefer some other host or site builder you can transfer it all over. The program only runs on PCs - I mostly use Macs but have a little laptop PC that works for site building.
Take a look at: www.bedwellcattlecompany.com

Regards to all,
Pat Warfield

Great advice already. As already mentioned you'd rather not have users have to scroll horizontally - I've got my site set at about 900 wide. As Preston mentioned, if you're planning on uploading a lot of images, you should consider going with a database/dynamic site design. Doing so also makes site-wide changes easier if you wish to change something later, and adding an image can be as simple as 1-2-3. I wrote all the code on my site, but I know there are templates out there for database driven sites.

Well, I use Smugmug, too. It costs a bit for the "Pro" site, but I find it works fine for me and for what I want my site to do at this time. You can use what they have and/or use a little customizing or ALOT of customizing. I would really prefer going out taking images than become a website programmer (and I used to be a programmer (not website)). Smugmug lets you define many different looks and image sizes as set by you OR the viewer. You upload one photo and Smugmug takes care of doing all the size changes. You can have as many photos as you like without extra charges for x number of photos. Add and delete as you wish.

I am sure if I really looked harder in to it, I could find software for my Mac to use to create custom websites for myself with not too steep a learning curve. Then I have to find a host, etc, etc, etc. I am actually thinking about a companion site with only my "best of the best" images in it ( I now have over 3000 images at Smugmug). That might mean a custom site to really showcase my selected images.

Guess this is more than you asked for. Shameless plug, if you signup at Smugmug, use my name so I get some kind of discount off my "Pro" account pricing!!! Hmmm....very shameless and I hope not in too poor taste or against the rules of engagement on this site! Every dollar saved goes for something new to add to my arsenal!!

Troup

Use 1024x768 as the screen resolution, but keep in mind that just because you have all that real estate, you don't have to use it. 600x800, once you shrink everything down to avoid scrolling, doesn't give you much area to work with.

Quite honesty, I really have to wonder how many serious buyers/viewers you'll be getting who are using a 600x800 screen.

I asked the same question about 4 months ago. The synopsis of the responses is that anyone who is seriously looking at your site will have the ability to view 1024 X 768. While I do have to scroll a lot on my dinky (cheap) work monitor, most like the 1024 X 768. I would be very careful in choosing another non standard size as weird things may occur.

Thanks for all the great advice and suggestions everyone!! I really like clickbooq, but just can't justify $$. So I've considered smugmug, building my own or ??? I really like the flash sites and the ability to just uppload new content. But I'm thinking to build such a site may require more time than I am willing to give. Decisions....decisions...... Thanks again I really appreciate all your responses!

I would go against the trend and suggest designing for 800 pixels wide. The fact that most users have 1024x768 of screen real estate is a misleading statistic. Most users will want to run multiple applications and being forced to expand a browser to take up the entire screen is, in my opinion, annoying and inconsiderate. In most cases I will not bother with a site that takes up too much of my screen (and will always immediately leave any site that uses scripting to maximize the browser window).
I use a 750-pixel wide table for my site content and so far have not found it restrictive.

Guy

I would give flash sites a second look. I read on another forum that editors often don't browse flash sites as they take too long. Apparently they just don't have much time to invest and may end up passing your site up for another.

Looking at Guy's website, maybe my point wasn't as clear as it could have been. On a 1024x768 monitor, there is a neutral grey background, with the background forming a 112 or so pixel background on the left and right. The center of the screen is contains the information he wants us to see. It is a nice design. One interesting thing about his site is that it looks better at 800 x 600.

Now suppose you were to redesign the website so those backgrounds still formed borders on the left and right. Then everything in the middle has to be compressed to allow those borders, so you get tiny text, tiny images, and a cramped design.