If you have a blog, post to photo sites, or do much on the web these days, you’ve no doubt run into the need to resize a photo for the web. In fact, you may have thought about doing it to add a picture to your Families.com profile. But if you aren’t sure how to do it, you may have just skipped that part.
Resizing a photo for the web is similar to resizing one for e-mail, just with a few tweaks. The purpose may also be a little different, since photos on the web are generally not going to be printed. Since this is the case, the resolution and the file size can generally be much smaller. Plus, if you’re posting photos to a web site, a smaller image means faster downloading time and less likelihood that your image will be copied by someone else.
Start resizing your photo like you would for e-mail, noting any particular requirements for the web site. Open your software, find the “Resize,” “Document Size,” or “Image Size” options, and adjust the size of the photo.
If you don’t follow these requirements, your photo probably won’t upload and you’ll be stuck trying again. The requirements may be for a specific number of pixels, overall file size, or both. Crop and resize your image to the appropriate size, then save, remembering to change your file name first.
If you’re resizing photos for a personal blog or another web site, there may not be any requirements you need to follow. Instead, you’ll want to think about why you’re posting the photos. Even if you want your photo to be big online, you’ll still probably want to resize your photos.
The biggest screens around usually don’t have a resolution higher than 1600 pixels, so a pixel count higher than that is wasted. Also, most people don’t have screens that big, so your bigger dimension really has no purpose bigger than 1600. Even if you set your larger dimension to 800 pixels, the photos will appear large and clear on most screens. You can go even smaller than that if you’re worried about your photos being used without your permission.