How The Heck Do I...

Re-Size My Photos?

TIP: Before you use the Photo Re-Sizer, create a new folder in your "My Pictures" folder. Call this something like "My Website Photos". Move only the photos you want to use into this folder. It will save a lot of time later.

Step 1   

This handy little piece of software is called Photo Re-Sizer.exe. You just double-click on it to open it. The image at right is what you will see on your screen.

The first thing you need to do is to add whatever photos you want re-sized.

To do this, first click on the button that says "Add from folder" next to the "Resize" icon.

Step 2

When you click on the 'add from folder' button, a box will pop up that allows you to navigate your way to the folder on your computer that contains the photo or photos you want.

Most of the time, your photos are in the folder called 'My Pictures'.

In this example, I'm looking for some photos that are in a folder called "Airlie Beach Trip." (I wasn't organized enough to create a folder called "My Website Photos" - but YOU will be! :-)

I click on that folder, and the name of the folder will appear next to the 'Selected folder' box at the bottom.

Then click "OK".

As soon as you click "OK", a list of photos will fill the white screen (see image below). All the boxes are ticked by default.  ONLY THE PHOTOS THAT ARE TICKED WILL BE RE-SIZED.

(Note the instruction at the top of the box that tells you to tick the ones you want re-sized.) If you have created a special folder for your website photos first, you will have only photos in there that you want re-sized anyway.

You will see a list of the current dimensions and file size of your photos. As you can see, most of these photos are a bit big to put on a website.

So... we're going to re-size them!

You can choose a maximum height/width of 200, 400, 600 (pixels) or a custom size. We're going to choose the smallest one here - 200 pixels.

What this does is make the SHORTEST side of the photo 200 pixels... so if a photo is rectangular, it could end up 200 pixels X 300 pixels.

Note that the default setting here is NOT to overwrite the original file, which is good. You will always have your original photo. The Photo Re-Sizer saves it with a "_small" extension. For example, I'm using a sunset photo. The original photo was called "SunsetPialba.jpg" and the re-sized photo will be in the same folder as the original, but it will be called "SunsetPialba_small.jpg".

Now it's time for Photo Re-Sizer to perform its magic!

Just click the 'RESIZE" button!

A box will pop up telling you that your resize operation has been completed.

The box in the photo resizer that contained your files is now empty - ready for another re-sizing operation!

Where are your photos?

In the same folder as the originals - all ready to upload to your website.

An example of a re-sized photo

Here you are - two photos of Sunset at Pialba (Hervey Bay)

Picture 1: File size: 30.1 kb; pixel size = 640 X 280 pixels

Picture 2, Re-sized: File Size = 7.78 kb; pixel size = 267 X 200 (remember, the pixel size you chose related to the shortest edge of the photo):

We have reduced the file size by about 75%.
That's good news for faster-loading web pages!   

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