digital darkroom

[sebergsen]

when i transfer my photos from my camera into my computer they are huge.4 meg pixel.
When i make them smaller to fit my homepage, i just go into photoshop and lower the image size.

is this the best way to make them smaller and keep the quality?

thx

[stopbath]

sebergsen wrote:


when i transfer my photos from my camera into my computer they are huge.4 meg pixel.
When i make them smaller to fit my homepage, i just go into photoshop and lower the image size.

is this the best way to make them smaller and keep the quality?

thx

Does Photoshop allow you to view how the file looks after it's saved? If so, just resize your image to the pixel size required, then "save as" with jpeg compression to the smallest file size you want while retaining the quality you want.

In the program GIMP, the file shown in the screen is a reflection of the compressed image. So you can see how different settings affect your file size, and your image quality. Generally, the more complex your image, the less you can compress it, but 75% is a good starting range in GIMP. After saving, the screen resets to the working version of the file.

[AliasMoze]

Instead of Save, use Save For Web, and the photo will open in Image Ready, which will allow you to test out what various JPEG settings will look like before saving.

Depending, as stopbath says, on the image, you can usually reduce the file size considerably without much noticeable loss in quality.