Tips and Tricks: Resizing Photos

Pretty much every website these days comes with a Content Management System (or CMS) that gives website owners control over their content on their website.

One of the key things in using a CMS is resizing a photo and uploading it. This article will show you some of the ways of resizing your photos before uploading - so that your site looks professional and your photos load quickly.

Guidelines

1. Many CMS's will give you a set size for your photos. It is essential you follow this guideline otherwise your photos may take longer to download or worse look distorted or pixelated.
2. To resize a photo you will need software on your computer. Some common programs include
   - Photoshop 
   - Paint
   - Serif Photo Plus
   
   You may also have image editing software that came with your digital camera that you can use.

Steps to resizing a photo

1. If your image is on your digital camera, download the image from your camera onto your computer.
2. Open your image in your favourite image editing software. You can do this by first opening your image editing software application. Then choosing "File" -> "Open".
3. Most programs do things in a similar way. For the programs listed above we''ve provided this step by step guide:

For Photoshop

1. Go to menu: "Image" - > "Image Size"
2. Under "Document Size" there is a field called "Resolution". Usually this should be set to 72 pixels / inch for websites
3. Make sure the "Constrain Proportions" option at the bottom of the dialogue box is ticked
4. Modify the "Width" / "Height" fields to the size you need (the width field is the first field and the height field is the second field)
5. Click OK
6. Save the file by going to the menu "File" > "Save As". It's a good idea to save the file as a different file name to the original in case you've made a mistake and need to go back to the original.
7. You should save the file as either a GIF or JPEG file.

For Paint users

1. On the home tab select "resize"
2. Change the horizontal / vertical proportions to match your specs.  You may need to resize your image first, and then "crop out" the bit you don't need.
3. Save the file by going to the menu "File" > "Save As". It''s a good idea to save the file as a different file name to the original in case you've made a mistake and need to go back to the original.
4. You should save the file as either a GIF or JPEG file.