Resizing your photos

[reefrunner69]

For some time I've been thinking about doing this and have just got around to it today. Since the site opened we have had questions about resizing and optimizing your photos for upload to the site. The site has a 100K file size limit on uploads and most digicams save your photo between 300 KB to over 1 MB, that is kinda drastic. So what I was hoping we could do is start a thread where we each tell what software we're using and how we resize/crop/optimize our photos prior to uploading to the web. I would also like to compile a list of software used for this, preferrably free software that members can download if they do not have any image resizing software available to them.
So I guess I'll start...
1) I use photoshop most of the time for resizing my photos, I have PSP (Paint Shop Pro), but I do not like it's image compression tools.
2) Open the image in PS7
3) I crop the image to the section I want to display (if not using the entire photo)
4) I run whatever filters I'm gonna on the photo (ie; autolevels and fade autolevels)
5) I resize the photo (Image > Image Size) I make sure it is set to resample image: bicubic and constrain the proportions. I choose a size of either 800 X 600 or 640 X 480 usually.
6) At this point you want to sharpen the image to make up for any distortion from resizing. I use the Unsharp Mask filter (Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask) set to 50% 1.5 pixel radius Threshold of 0, these values are all adjustable, but that or expanding the piel radius tends to give me the best results.
7) Now you want to compress/optimize the image, in PS I use Save For Web (File > Save for Web) I save in jpeg format, I tend to set it between 45-65 compression keeping an eye on the file size and d'load time. Click save, direct the Save box to where you want to save the optimized pic and your almost done. This saves the file, but you still have the original, unless you saved it back to the same folder with the same file name. I do not save the changes to the original, I keep my originals in the exact same form the camera did.

Hopefully that will help someone, please post how you save, resize and compress your photos, make sure to tell us what imaging software your using.

Also as promised here is a short list of Image compression utilities you can download for free.

http://www.imageresizer.com/
http://www.irfanview.com/

This is a powertool for windows XP users.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp
If anyone knows of any other free utilities for this type of thing please post that also

 

[alrmc4]

thank you this is one of the most helpful things you could have posted now even i should be able to do it

 

[reefrunner69]

^bump^

Need more posts on this topics

 

[reefrunner69]

http://www.gimp.org/

Another free image manipulator

 

[loganj]

Well, I use Photoshop 7 also. I do it the same way Kevin does minus a few steps which is why his pics look better than mine. Not much help I know. The PS7 is a great program and I'd recommend it to anyone.

 

[reefrunner69]

Here is a list of downloads, most are shareware, I have no idea how any of these preform, but they are rated by some of the folks that have downloaded them.

http://tucows.cyber.net.pk/mmedia/imageopti95_default.html

 

[Dewey]

photo resizing

That was a great post Reefrunner. I was wondering how you did that.

Thanks Dewey

 

[skys]

Filters? ack

 

[ferret]

If you have Linux, just throw all your pictures into one folder, and type the following on your console:

mogrify -resize 50% *.jpg

Or *.gif, etc. Or -resize 800x600. You can specify a percentage or static resolution. You can resize all your pictures in one go like this, and depending on the computer, be done with like 50 pictures in under a minute. 'Mogrify' is part of the ImageMagick package that all Linux distro's come with.

 

[reefrunner69]

Or *.gif, etc. Or -resize 800x600. You can specify a percentage or static resolution. You can resize all your pictures in one go like this, and depending on the computer, be done with like 50 pictures in under a minute. 'Mogrify' is part of the ImageMagick package that all Linux distro's come with.

That's pretty darn cool!! with a little trial and error you should be able to find just the right percentage at a specific size to get the best balance between quality and size. The only problem I would have, would be if it was replacing the originals.

 

[ferret]

It will, but I believe there's another option that doesn't, or you could keep the originals elsewhere and shrink copies. This is the method I use for my photos. I upload my 1290x1024 pictures, and make a second copy in a folder called 'thumbs' .. Then I shrink the first set to 800x600, and the second to 160x120 as thumbnails. Then I have a simple php script that links it all together, as follows: http://slinky.no-ip.org/~ferret/fish-images/

 

[ferret]

I should also note this is just the tip of what mogrify can do. It is a full image editing toolkit. It can adjust colors, crop, stretch, etc. I believe at its core, the GIMP program (Linux's version of Photoshop, just as good), uses mogrify for a lot of things.

 

[fishfreek]

our gallery uses mogrify as well as a few other serverside scripts to manipulate the images that are uploaded.

 

[Sati]

I recommend Irfanview. It's free, simple, and good. It's very popular and has been around for years and years

 

[reefrunner69]

I just found this link on another forum, it's very informative and could be very helpful for our photographers here at AA.com

Image Resizing

 

[Brad]

Resize pictures - Kodak EasyShare

Anyone with a Kodak EasyShare camera can use the software that comes with the camera.

1) click on the image you want
2) hit the "edit picture" button
3) hit "save as"
4) choose 25%, or 50% from the resize list. Which one works best will depend somewhat on the exact model of camera.

BTW...Kodak EasyShare software is the 2nd most commonly used image software behind Adobe. EasyShare is available free from www.kodak.com

 

[mrmarine]

In windows xp go to start>programs>microsoft office>microsoft office tools>microsoft office picture manager i just found this program this morniing

when you resize something the filesize changes even though some times it doesnt say so

also has a great auto balance feature
HTH

Mr. Marine

 

[chasgood]

Here is a enlarging tip I read somewhere.
Do the enlarging in small steps of 5 to 10 percent at a time. The enlarged image will not be as soft doing it this way. To save time you can make a action in photoshop.

 

[reefrunner69]

10% increments using bicubic smoother, there are better programs for upsizing, like Q-image and Genuine fractals.

 

[MarineFlake]

Not that this is such a hot topic, but in XP (And maybe other Windows OS that has Outlook) I select all my photos (either CTRL+A or individually) and then right click on one of them (Should be blue if selected) and use the send to..mail receipient. In Xp at least, it asks if you want to resize the photos, I click the show more options and use 800x600. I can do em in batches this way. Once the conversion is complete, It then loads up the mail 'composing' screen and I simply create a folder and drag drop, then cancel the email...pretty lame huh..Ya Im that damn lazy I guess ; )

-PC