resizing photos for upload

[paulrace]

10. After you have changed the name, save the file.

[paulrace]

11. Verify the quality and click "OK." You can slide the little pointer back and forth to see where the picture quality starts to deteriorate. The poorer the quality setting, the smaller the file, but the highest setting is often overkill. Usually you can go down to 75% or something without even seeing a difference. In some cases, you can go much lower. If you can't tell the difference, say, between 75% and 100%, go with 75%. Or 80% if it makes you feel better. That might be all the detail the photo has anyway. If you go higher than that, you're increasing the file size, but you're not really increasing the quality.

[paulrace]

12. Check the file size. When I saved the photo in this example at 100%, it came out to be over 400K. Now you KNOW that I hadn't really IMPROVED the quality of the original photo - that's not possible. I had just set the quality too high. I set it back down a little (I don't remember how much, sorry) and saved it again, with the result that the image size went down, as it should for a smaller image

[paulrace]

I got a question about Windows 7's Paint program. If you have Windows 7 you don't need to download anything. Just:
1. Open the file in Paint.
2. Select Resize.
3. Make sure that Pixels is Checked.
4. Make sure that Maintain Aspect Ratio is checked. (If you have an older version of Windows and the Paint program doesn't have a Maintain Aspect Ratio button, you will need a different program, such as the Paint.net program shown above.)
5. Enter the new width (for this forum 800 or less). The height will change automatically.
6. Use the Save As function to give the file a new name so you don't over-write the high resolution original.

resizing_w_windows_7_paint_program.jpg (63.2 KiB) Viewed 27331 times

The only reason this might not work is if you've cropped your photo so that it's nearly as wide (or wider) as it is tall. In that case, I usually change the height so it's lower than 600 and most people can see it on their screen. 720 height is about the maximum, even for folks who have 1600x900pixel screens, because the headers and footers on the browser take up so much vertical space.

[paulrace]

One addition - some graphic programs allow to save jpg files in 32-bit color, which is used by printers. For the web, you want to go with 24 bit color, also called RGB. This will look JUST as good online, and will be a much smaller file so it will download MUCH faster.