Resizing photos for our gallery and other uses

[jerrymeola]

I noticed that most of the Orchid photos posted in the gallery are at 700 pixels, which is the maximum size the gallery can have.

If you take the time to resize the photos to 600 pixels on the longest size the file size of the photo is usually 60k rather than the 600-700k of most of the posts.

The display time for the 600 pixel photos will be almost 10 times faster and the images will be just as good.

A computer display uses 72 dpi that is 72 pixels to the inch. A 700 pixel photo is almost 10 inches and the forum has to resize the photo to fit the screen. This takes a lot of time without any improvement in image quality.

The same thing applies to the use of a photo for any other purpose. If you email an image 600 pixels is the perfect size for the same reasons. JPEGs can be compressed at about a quality of 5 if you sofware allows change for emails. A quality level of 7 is about right for a gallery such as ours.

Almost all photography software allows for resizing. Often it is confusing to set a size in pixels, but a simple solution is to use 600 for the longest side unless a smaller size is desired. When your software asks for the size just set 600 for both and check the box that says 'constrain proportions' or something similar. This will force the longest side to be 600 and the other side to be whatever keeps the same proportions in the photo.

If you were doing a web site you would often chose 100-125 for the longest side for fast display and maybe a click on larger image size of 300-350.

Understanding how the photo will be used and adjusted accordingly will improve your enjoyment of the images.

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

How to change quality level in Windows.

Open your picture in Microsoft Photo Editor:
Use Explorer, and go to the file that contains the picture you want to shrink the file size of. Place your curser on the thumbnail, or file name of the wanted picture, and right click. Move your curser down to 'Open with'. This should cause a second window to open. Move your curser over to the second window, then down to, and click on, Microsoft Photo Editor. If you do not find this in the list in this new window, move your curser to the bottom of the window and click on 'Chose Program'. You will then be given a larger choice and then click twice on 'Microsoft Photo Editor'.

Once your picture has opened up in Microsoft Picture editor:

1) Do not crop it unless that is what you really want to do.

2) Do not resize it, unless it was a little fuzzy, and you don't want anyone to know. This is great for me as I sometimes miss focus on my flowers.

3)Now, without having done anything at all in the editor, unless you really wanted to do one of the above, go to and click on 'File', on the far left of the top menu bar. When the drop down menu opens, go down to and click on 'Save As'. When the new window opens up, you will want you to do two things, the second being the most important.

a) Click on 'More>>' at the very bottom of the window. When the next window opens, move the slider at the very bottom of the window until the number just above it reads about 75. Now, when you finally (but not now) click on 'Save', your photo will take up only about 10% of the space it did before. However, **DON'T** click on 'Save' yet, not until you have done the following.

b) I very highly recommend that you attach a code to you new picture that indicates what you have done to the picture. By making a change in the 'File Name' mini-window, at about the center of the currently open window, a new file will be created, leaving the old file untouched. I use 'F75', 'F75c', or 'H75', meaning F=full size, 'c'=crop, 'H'=half size (when resizing), and '75' for the quality level, although I have a different numbering system based on the Photoshop quality levels. Examples:

Arpophyllum giganteum F7 IMG03533.jpg
or
IMG03533 F12.jpg

F12, for me, means maximum quality; F7 is my standard quality for sending pics thru mail or Internet. I am sure you will want to come up with your own system, but above all, you have to make **SOME** kind of a name change, or you will **WIPE OUT** your original picture. Cynthia