Specify Height and Width in your html code for your animated gif images. You should always specify height and width in your html code for your animated gif images. If you do not specify height and width in your html code, then the browser will wait for the graphic to load before loading the text. You should also be aware that setting the height and width in your html code to a size smaller than the graphic will not reduce download time since the image's file size will remain the same as it was before.

Specify a low-res image to display as a high res image loads. You can create a low -res variation of a jpg or gif image to appear while waiting for the high res image to finish downloading. When you do this, the page appears to load much faster to the user. In reality, the extra image actually adds to the total download time. To add a low-res variation, you simply add an attribute to the image tag like the following:

IMG src="image-high-res.gif" lowsrc="image-low-res.gif"

Be sure to use jpgs for colourful photographic images. While you could compress your photographic images as gif images, jpeg compresses colourful images with generally better results, since jpg images offer 24 bit colour compared to gif images' 256 colours.

Substitute thumbnails for larger images on a webpage.

Use interlaced jpg and gif images. You can save your images as interlaced jpg and gif images that will display a preview of the images as they load.

Alright, now go and CREATE!