Hello folks,

I just wanted to say that I've been a CorelDRAW user since CorelDRAW 3, and I'm glad I found this group.

I'm a Technical Illustrator, and as such I've illustrated 3 US Army Field Manuals using CorelDraw. I have also used AutoCad to create illustrations. I created one illustration using Adobe Illustrator and that was enough. Using that program is very similar to using AutoCad 7, where as using CD is more like using AutoCad 2008.

Besure to check out my digital portfolio at http://neal327.tripod.com/  

Welcome to CorelDRAW.com. As you are focusing on technical illustrations, have you ever tried Corel DESIGNER. Corel just announced version X4 which enhances CorelDRAW X4 with specific features for technical illustration.

If you are interested in having your own gallery on this site, simply contact the administrators (http://coreldraw.com/content/faq.aspx#63). 

Hi Neal,

Thanks for dropping by, I checked out your portfolio, nice work. This is the place to be, we help each other get the best results possible and deal with technical issues and also inspire others with our abilities.

If you're interested, I can offer free advice for improving the both viewing quality and load times of your images in a dramatic way.

Most of the images on your site were very large and scaled down with HTML... and therefore took a long time to load, even with a hi-speed connection. They also had interpolation artifacts from the browsers for that reason.

The other is that most images would shrink in file size yet again if saved at a paletted GIF or PNG 8 color depth.

For ex, the image below was 721 KB as a scaled RGB jpeg on the site, here it is non-scaled at only 74 KB (8 -bit GIF), 1/10 the size.  What do you think? (I've scaled it down a touch more here than on your site, just to fit inside the post...)

just my 2 cents. :-)

Thanks for your good words, guys.

Thanks for the info Gerard Metrailler.

I'd like to take you up on your offer to help, Jeff Harrison. Since I'm now contracting on my own, anything I can do to improve my website will help me attract more clients.  

Hi Neal,

Glad to hear that you are open minded. Here is a post on my Blog about this issue.

Neal327:

I'd like to take you up on your offer to help, Jeff Harrison. Since I'm now contracting on my own, anything I can do to improve my website will help me attract more clients.  

Welcome to the forum Neal!

Nice work on your site btw - one thing I would suggest is perhaps getting yourself a nice forwarding URL (web address). Something like www.nealnaughton.com would set you back by $10 a year but may prove more memorable and easy to find on the web than your tripod address :) (price found on www.godaddy.com)

Andy

 Thanks Andy. Will look into that as soon as I clear up a few other issues.

 Thanks again Andy, I printed out the info and will try it later.