I have a background image (jpg) with clouds which often loads very slow. It is about 5 Kb (windows explorer). When opening it, Paint shop Pro says 263 K (?) 300 x 300 pixels, 24 bits / pixel and max 16 million colors.

What can I do to make the background image load faster. What does a browser do; does it extend the picture or produces it several 300 x 300 background images.

Are there rules for background images like size ? The bigger (size) the better or the smaller the better?

The browser will load one copy of the pic and show it over and over. Is it a photo? If not, then try saving it as a gif. Can you post the pic here and I'll see what I can do as far as optimization.

background images are supposed to load last, even with script style html in mind,

however, which software do you use to make the jpg?

besides, when you open an image in Paint Shop, it is possible that your setting are such that open image is imediately made into PS working format and that is why you get a huge size

other than that, try using a CSS and set background-repeat: no-repeat, see what it does to loading speed,

nevertheless, it is always an option your dealing with a wrong file, while constantly checking the one you think is the right one, if you have multiple quality files or something like that

in my experience, that can happen in no time

Airnine

It is this one http://www.links-1.com/
I hope nobody gets upset because of adding one of my links. But as you will see, there is nothing to promote.

I have to say, there are some network problems at my host. This is now probably the reason the picture can take a very long time to load. Last time it was 1 minute for me. But it has always been slow.

loaded fast for me.

After looking at the background, my suggestion would be to make a smaller tiled version, about 80x80. You'll get the same effect, since the image is very light in color, it won't be noticable either.

If you need help, let me know, and I would be happy to make a tiled cloud image for you.

I agree with ANMMark, there is no need to have an image of 300x300 size, because of the image structure it could be really small,

besides, I downloaded the image and there's nothing wrong with it, so it must be the host is having some serious trouble with the system and the traffic is snale slow

might think of finding a better host, if you need the site for serious business

Airnine

It was a background image used in a template. I copied it many times and used it on all of my sites. I never looked into it, because it was only 5Kb. I didn't even now the size.

Because my host is having problems again (they are famous in the " Network Outages and Updates" section) I am going to switch to a new host in a couple of days.

It now is 100 x 100. 28 Kb according to PSP. But still very slow. I know it is my host and I'll wait untill I am moved to my new host to get a better view for the reasons of being so slow.

Thanks for the help.