Using a background image

[okpeery]

I would like to use a background image for the whole body area of my website. I want the foliage image to be slightly hazy but earth tone in color. I was wondering if I made the image fairly transparent could I still add a body background color using CSS and have the body color show through the image? I'm thinking this will result in a smaller file size rather than achieving the same result using only photoshop and then optimizing the image including the color effect?

 

[johnwm]

The resolution of your image will have a bigger impact on file size. If you only want a translucent image as a background use a high compression jpg

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[Foamcow]

To do this nicely you'd need to use a 24bit alpha channel. The only file format that supports this is a 24bit PNG and IE doesn't like them (not with transparency anyway).

That said, you'd almost certainly get a smaller file just making flat image with no transparency effect.

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Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web site design in Cheltenham and Gloucester
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[okpeery]

Thanks, I just made it look how I wanted in photoshop and then placed it as the background image. I wonder if there is a trick to putting an image as the background. I got my background image size down to 40K but plus the other content my page is 65-70K. I guess it's fine but I try to shoot for smaller file size.