Graphics can of course be a great enhancement to your site. They add interest and colour, and help illustrate what you are trying to say. However (of course there's a 'however'), do not use tooo many graphics, or your page will be slow-loading, and people will give up and go elsewhere. If you want to use lots of pictures, try splitting the page up so the browser doesn't have too many images to load at a time.

This section is organised under the following five headings:
Suggestions for the use of graphics
How to use graphics
The graphics themselves
Graphics programs
Where to find graphics

Part 1 - Suggestions for the use of graphics:

If your page has a theme, e.g. craft, holidays, culture etc, try to find graphics along that theme. It's always fun to look at a page where the graphics match the content.

To break up a page into sections, you might think about using a line graphic instead of the usual boring page-breaks.

Use photographs in personal home pages. It's fun to be able to see the person who created a site. You can either use a scanned image, or pictures from a digital camera (if you're rich).

Part 2 - How to use graphics (yes, it's different from part 1):

There are any number of sites on the web offering free graphics. These come in two varieties: linkware and freeware. If you want to use linkware you are usually required to provide a link to the creator's site, and e-mail them to let them know where you are using their graphics. Freeware is free to download and use in any way you like (except usually not commercially). The other option is of course to create your own graphics. I like to create my own titles for pages, but I often use other people's work to decorate the rest of the page. If you choose to use 'borrowed' graphics, make sure you save the images to your own h/d and upload them to your server from there, rather than linking to other people's sites. It's only common courtesy.

When you import the graphics into your page, try to use the 'alt.text' feature. This means that if a user turns off image loading, or the server is slow to load images, the person can see a description of what the picture is of. To do this in html coding insert ALT="whatever text" after the name of the image file. In Netscape Composer use the image properties -- Alt. Text / LowRes. button.

Part 3 - The graphics themselves:

There are loads of different image formats, but the best (if not the only - I'm not sure) to use for the web are .gif images and .jpg (or .jpeg) images. Jpeg images are faster-loading, as they are compressed to take up less file space. They can often be the best sort to use. Gif images are often preferable because they can be made 'transparent' - that is, they will not show in a (white) block when they are featured on a coloured background. To summarise, rectangular images are fine to be in jpeg format under most circumstances, while if you want a 'floating' image, use gifs.

Part 4 - Graphics handling - programs:

Personally, I use Ulead PhotoImpact to do most of my graphics. I have also recently aquired Paint Shop Pro, which allows me to make graphics in .gif format transparent. There are lots and lots of graphics programs available. Many companies offer shareware copies on the internet. Shareware is stuff that you can download from the net, but can only use for a trial period, usually around 30 days, before you are required to register and pay for your copy.
Go to the Ulead homepage to download the latest version of PhotoImpact.
Go to the Jasc Software homepage to download the latest version of Paint Shop Pro.

Part 5 - Where to get graphics:

Now, here I could insert a list a billion miles long, as there are just sooo many resources for free graphics. I am therefore only going to link those which I feel are the best freeware and linkware resources. Other than these, many of the free webspace providers offer a base of images, which usually won't count towards your filespace. You should think about using these for basic graphics such as lines and bullets.
Anyway, here are some of my favourite resources:

Aron's sample graphics
The animated gif archive
Sewdoll craft clipart
Moyra's web jewels
Civilisations and Eras MiningCo. clipart links
Neferchichi's Egyptian clipart
Flowers and Plants MiningCo. clipart links
Iconographics
Graphics from the FreeStuffCenter