Creating Thumbnails for your images
Creating thumbnails for your work might seem the simplest task in the world, but in my view there's an art to it. I often see a thumbnail that is just the whole image shrunk down to postage stamp size, and in 90% of cases I don't think that works. You lose loads of definition, and give your prospective viewer eyestrain.
Try to think of your thumbs as advertising for the whole image. Find an interesting part of your image and crop it out, then take a look at it and see if it would make you want to open the whole thing to see what else is in there. Make it intersting, try to capture the essence of your image without giving away all its secrets, a bit like a movie trailer.
Here's a couple of examples from my own work, to give you an idea of what I'm rambling on about.
If I'd squashed the whole images down, and kept the same maximum height of 95 pixels they would have looked like this...
Here are the images themselves. These versions are pretty low resolution and physically smaller than the versions on my website, to keep the filesize of this tutorial down.
I don't know what you think, but I prefer the idea of a teaser rather than a what you see is what you get kind of thumbnail.
Filesizes
As far as filesize for your thumbs goes, the smaller it is the faster they load of course. This doesn't mean make them so small that they're unrecogniseable. Try to strike a balance between size and quality. You do want people to be able to recognise your talent without having to squint.
If you're submitting to another site they will usually provide guidelines for physical size and the maximum filesize of your thumbs as well as your actual image. If you've got Photoshop, then use the Save For Web function, or Image Ready, as I do.
If you don't own it then there are other image optimizers available.
Here's a tutorial for optimizing images in Fireworks...
http://www.macromedia.com/support/fireworks/optimize/optimize_jpeg/
...and one for Paint Shop Pro
http://www.jasc.com/tutorials/revised/optimizing.asp
Here's a stand alone shareware app.
http://www.softempire.com/interactive-jpeg-optimizer.html
There are even optimizers that will work via the net...
http://www.auniverse.com/webmasters/tool/jpeg_crunch.htm
...and as plugins for other graphics programs.
http://www.boxtopsoft.com/
See, there's no excuse for not optimizing your thumbnails (and all your images in fact) properly for the net.
Finally
Experiment with your thumbs. The creative process doesn't stop after you've rendered and postworked your latest masterpiece. There's a lot of competition for views out there, and if you want your images to be looked at, and you aren't a big name already, then dare to be different.
