I have recently purchased Website Creator X5 and am a little challenged on how to set a picture for a web page background. When I insert the image (jpg or gif) as the background, it only shows part of the image. I assume I need to reduce the resolution of the picture down quite a bit to have the complete picture used as the web page background. If that is correct. What resolution do I need to go to? If not correct. How do I make my web page background use the image I want?
I don't really know much about web design or the requirements for it but I think you need to set the image as 72dpi, Someone else might correct me on that but I'm sure that is the resolution needed
Most modern browsers really don't care about resolution - stuff like 72 dpi or 96 dpi. They care about the number of pixels, width and height.
So for a web background you want to choose a size in pixels that approximates the size of the monitor you're trying to suit. That's where the guessing starts - in the old days you could design for a width of 800 or 960, but today it can be 1440 and above. People with older monitors will have smaller screens, some people have honking big ones.
Modern cameras can shoot photos that are easily 5000 pixels wide and up. The good news is you can easily resize a photo down to fit the site requirements. Given the shape of today's monitors, though, you may need to crop first and then resize. It depends on the photo.
Clear as mud?
When designing for viewing on monitors, use pixels as your standard of measurement, not inches or centimeters. A difficult issue with designing for web pages is that different people view the page on different monitors with varying number of pixels. To complicate matters further, many people view web pages in windows rather than full screen. More recently, there is the issue of people viewing the web page with mobile phones or tablets.
The first decision you must make is whether you want the picture to be a background for the whole screen or simply for the page. If you want the whole picture seen at once, you should keep the size smaller. I still keep my pages no larger than 800 pixels in width. Wider pages are OK if you know your viewers will be viewing them in larger windows on larger monitors.
The size you choose will also be effected by what else you have on your page. For example, each column of text should be kept reasonably narrow since most people will discontinue reading if the column is too wide. If each line of text becomes too long, it becomes difficult for readers to find the next line when moving their eyes from the right side of the column back to the left.
These are just a few of the issues that make web site designing a challenge. Many books have been written on the topic, but most people don't bother to read them. One enlightening book is "Prioritizing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen. Rather than just asking people how they use the web, he uses sophisticated methods of measuring how they actually view sites. The results are very interesting and reveal many design problems.