MSIE7+ image resizing interpolation

MSIE7 and later by default use an image resizing algorithm that means that scaled down images can look blocky and rasterized. To solve this and make them smoother, we simply enable a much better resizing algorithm that is available in MSIE that produces results similar to what you’d expect from most image editing software.


/* bicubic resizing for non-native sized IMG */
<style type="text/css">
img { -ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic; }
</style>

Data URL’s (aka HTML Inline Images)

Here’s a useful trick for minimizing server HTTP connections, unfortunately it’s not universally supported so you will need to provide alternate methods for non-supporting browsers (such as MSIE).

This works by placing the content of the image into the URL itself, as such there’s no need to open up a new server connection and no extra caching at any tier.

<img src=”data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAOALMAAOazToeHh0tLS/7LZv/0jvb29t/f3//Ub/ /ge8WSLf/rhf/3kdbW1mxsbP//mf///yH5BAAAAAAALAAAAAAQAA4AAARe8L1Ekyky67QZ1hLnjM5UUde0ECwLJoExKcppV0aCcGCmTIHEIUEqjgaORCMxIC6e0CcguWw6aFjsVMkkIr7g77ZKPJjPZqIyd7sJAgVGoEGv2xsBxqNgYPj/gAwXEQA7″ alt=”embedded folder icon” width=”16″ height=”14″ />

NOTE: this process is obsolete, from what I can gather it was only supported in MSIE6, and possibly MSIE7.

Use of this tag will disable the Image Toolbar (normally accessed via right-click) within MSIE. Typically it is enabled whenever an image larger than 130×130 is displayed.

Implementation:
Add the following to the <head> section of your webpage(s):
<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="false" />

Alternately, you COULD use some proprietary MSIE attributes on the <img /> tag.
<img src="..." galleryimg="false" />

Even when you use the META tag to disable this feature for all images, you can explicitly re-enable it with the following proprietary tag…
<img src="..." galleryimg="true" />

References: