I've worked at a newspaper, and here were our rules: "We prefer Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files created via Adobe Distiller (high-resolution graphics and all fonts embedded). We also accept Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator files (Mac or Windows). Please include any fonts or graphics used. We can accept files created with many other applications as well, provided they are saved in a production-compatible file format (i.e. eps, pdf, tif, etc). Files created in non-professional publishing applications (such as MS Word, PowerPoint, etc) will have to be re-created in order to be published. In most cases, this is a simple thing. However, be aware that some reprocessing of your files will frequently be required - and some actions (changing your art from an RGB to a CMYK colorspace, for instance) may affect quality. " and "Generally speaking, for continuous-tone art (e.g. photography), the resolution needs to be 180 ppi or greater to print well. Please be aware that art on your company's web site is likely either 72 or 96 ppi and, contrary to popular perception, *cannot* be resampled at a higher resolution to yield acceptable results. Line Art, also known as "bitmap" art, can be higher resolution as needed. If your company's hi-res logos are 1270 dpi, that's ok. In fact, too much data is almost always ok." In practice, we usually didn't like anything smaller than 300 ppi. (the site is here: http://advertise.statenews.com/faq.php#tech1 ) EPS is grand for vector images. We loved getting EPS files, because sometimes we could drop them right on the page. And you're 100% right about .gifs and .tiffs. A few colors, with no shadings/gradations/too many round shapes, and you get a much smaller file for your money. .jpgs are great in general for anything you wouldn't use a .gif for. I've seen a lot of .pngs lately, but unless I'm deliberately creating a transparency I'm not wild about them.
Also, now that I'm thinking about it, how do you make a link so it just downloads an image, rather than attempting to take you to a webpage which displays it? These are going to be so big that it will be useless to try to view them at screen resolution. Actually, this is something that Robin will have to deal with, not me, since she's pushing them, but I thought I'd ask, while I had your attention, since I'm curious...
The only real way to do this that I've found is to either say 'right click and save' or to save them in a format that forces a download -- like dropping them in a zip file. So there's my two cents all around. Laurie. -- "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 1953