ImageReady was first released in 1998 as a stand alone application. Since version 2.0 ImageReady has been sold side-by-side with photoshop. Today with version 9.0 ImageReady and Photoshop are almost identical in look and use. However, ImageReady was developed with the web in mind. ImageReady is designed for quick editing of web graphics and has such features as animated GIF creation, image optimization, Creating slices and image maps for hyperlinks rollover effects, and HTML generation.

What can we use ImageReady for:

ImageReady is most commonly used for intergrading your photos or images with your website. ImageReady provides several features that help us determine what kind of compression will look the best on a website. ImageReady also generates useable HTML, which means the documents we create in ImageReady are going to look the same once it is uploaded onto your website. ImageReady is also used for several other features such as GIF generating and creating image slices. If you are looking to use photos on your website then ImageReady is the application for you.