In responsive design, images play a crucial role in ensuring that your website looks good on all devices. Flexible images are images that can scale and adjust to fit different screen sizes and resolutions without losing quality or breaking the layout. This section will cover the techniques and best practices for implementing flexible images in your responsive designs.

1. Fluid Images: Images that scale proportionally to fit their container.
2. Responsive Images: Using different image sources based on the device's screen size and resolution.
3. Retina Images: High-resolution images for devices with high pixel density.

Fluid images automatically resize to fit the width of their container. This is achieved using CSS.

Example:

Explanation:

• max-width: 100%: Ensures the image does not exceed the width of its container.
• height: auto: Maintains the aspect ratio of the image.

Responsive images allow you to serve different images based on the device's characteristics using the <picture> element and srcset attribute.

Example:

Explanation:

• <source> elements define different images for different media queries.
• The <img> element provides a default image if none of the media queries match.

Retina images are used to provide high-quality images for devices with high pixel density. This is done using the srcset attribute.

Example:

Explanation:

• srcset specifies different image resolutions.
• 2x and 3x indicate the image is for devices with 2x and 3x pixel density, respectively.

Task: Create a responsive image gallery that adjusts the image sizes based on the screen width.

Instructions:

1. Use the <picture> element to serve different image sizes.
2. Ensure images are fluid and maintain their aspect ratio.
3. Test the gallery on different screen sizes.

Solution:

Feedback:

• Ensure all images have alt attributes for accessibility.
• Test the gallery on various devices to ensure images load correctly.

Flexible images are essential for creating responsive designs that look great on any device. By using fluid images, responsive images, and retina images, you can ensure that your images are both visually appealing and efficient. In the next section, we will explore the concept of viewports and units, which are crucial for understanding how to design layouts that adapt to different screen sizes.