Topic: TECHIE TIPS: Resizing images to fit the board

[Anne]

To resize in Paint Shop Pro, go to the Image menu > select Resize. In the new box which opens set the size to 800 pixels in either the height or the width (depending on whether your photo is tall or wide). PSP will auto-calculate the length of the other side for you. Click OK, then click Save As... under the File menu - in the box which opens choose a filename and where to save it but before you save, click the Options button bottom right of that box. Set the Compression Factor to 40% (either type 40 into the box or use the slider control), click OK and then Save. Your resulting file should be big enough to see but small enough to fit the board's limits. 

For more help with images, see our other Help topics here:
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,6522.0.html
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,36712.0.html
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,23763.0.html

[KevinH]

NOTE: As at Nov 2014, testing "ImageOptimiser" with source images over 1.4Mb (and minimum pixel width / height of 3008 x 1688) has shown that the program does not reduce the files easily to below 125Kb (Board max) even when 600 pixel max is requested for the reduced file. Anne's suggestion below, for "shrinkpictures" does work well for the same source images, providing results less than 100Kb for a reduction down to 760 pixel max size.


In addition to the other options within our Help topics for resizing and compressing images, the following is a more recent facility (mentioned by Anne in a couple of past posts):

Image Optimiser http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspx
This is a free website service and acts as an immediate interface with your chosen images(s) through a standard file selection dialog. The result can be saved to your own file directory, again using a standard "Save file" dialog.

Anne has suggested input parameters for using that site of:
Quality ... Normal; Max Width ... 700; Max height ... 700

An example result, with a comparison to an image that I prepared on behalf of a new member, and using separate crop, resize and compression routines, can be seen in a thread in the Paperweights forum: http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,51305.msg291083.html#msg291083

[Anne]

The free tool Kev has linked to above is not always working (have we worn it out?  ), so I've been to search for an alternative for you, and found this one, which seems to be even easier to use!

The easiest way is to use the online resizer here: http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

Select the image you want to resize and upload it, and choose the settings needed...

Select New Maximum Image dimension
I suggest 760 Pixels for image up to 3Mb original size, and 600 Pixels for images larger than that initially.

Set resized image quality (jpg compression) to Good

Press Resize button and wait for the result (it can take several minutes depending on the size of the image and your internet speed.

Once it's resized you'll see a new page, where you can download the resized image, and you have the option to delete the original immediately from their server too. If you don't delete immediately it is auto-deleted after 2 hours.

Your resized image should be less than the 125kb the board needs if you follow the settings above. Then you can just attach pics to your posts onto GMB.

Mod: Update as at Nov 2014. Please be aware: The "completion page" shows info for pixel width and height and also Kb size for the resized image. However the actual image size for the downloaded file may be about 2x that shown on the web page.

Please contact me if you get stuck and need help with resizing images.

[KevinH]

Another "resizer" to try is: http://www.picresize.com/

My own tests show that is is quite quick and easy to use. Leaving parameters as default - other than new width or height - produced a good quality 100 Kb image after resizing from 3008 x 1688 down to 800 x 449. And the 100 Kb stated on the web page was the true Kb size for the downloaded file.

Update as at 29-Oct-2020
While using this tool to resize three images, it was very clear that the site now uses several "Ad Overlays" and the position of the Ad info seems to be fairly random. Clicking to an area outside an Ad sometimes removes it temporarily but sometimes scrolling the window will move target controls back into view.

Also, there are now fewer controls (e.g. I could no longer find "select pixel dimensions").

So I was left with a bit of guesswork as to what controls to use and when. But after a while, and after I had managed to move things into view from their hiding place behind an Ad,  I started to better understand a "Crop, Resize, Save" routine.

The updated version of the tool still operates quite quickly. Even my out of date Browser did not slow it down and resized results were produced well within 20 seconds or so. And leaving most controls on the "default" setting still produced very good results for image quality.