Easy speak for reducing photo file size

[Solo175]

Hello All,

I am having a great deal of trouble understanding the process of posting a photo on the web.

Specifically, the said web site in question has a limit of 65kb file size as this one has 100kb. I understand the limitations due to load times and what kind of connections people are on. I also understand that people have different photo editing software so that an explanation of how to do this would only apply to a specific program.

The results that I am hoping to obtain is this:

A reasonable size picture say 4x6 for example on the computer screen or 600 pixels on the longest side.

Some good clarity.

What I would really like is a simple explanation of how to reduce a large photo size into a small kilobyte size that would be universal to any photo editing software :o .

Hope some kind person can help and Thanks in advance!

[Hellashot]

Most softwares have "save for web" or "email" option that reduces image size and quality which reduce file size.

[Scottes]

From an old post... This was about saving an Avatar image, but just increase the pixel dimensions and file sizes to your liking. The process is otherwise identical.


Get your image to 80x80 pixels.

Image... Mode... Convert to Profile. Choose a Destination Space of sRGB IEC61966-2.1. (If the Source Space is already sRGB then hit Cancel.)

Then File... Save For Web.

Near the top rght corner you'll have a box with choices of GIF, JPG, PNG, etc. Set it to JPG.
Below that uncheck both Progressive and ICC Profile.
To the right of that check Optimized

Now look at the right image, and look all the way at the bottom. It should say something like:
JPEG
9.562K
10 sec @ 56Kbps

As long as that number is below 8.000K you're fine. (That's a decimal point, so 8K, not 8 thousand K.) But if not, look back up near the top right corner, to the right of where you set JPG, you'll see a box called Quality and it will probably say "100" in it but will say something between 1 and 100.

Click the arrow to the right of the number and a slider will pop up.
Grab the triangle and slide it towards the middle until it is set at 50 or somewhere around that.

Now once again look at the numbers below the right image - the number should be much smaller. Move the slider around until it's slightly less than 8.000K.

Now check out the image on the right. Does it look OK? If it looks like crap compared to the picture on the left then it's over-compressed. If you don't like how it looks then hit the cancel button and resize it to 70x70 or 60x60 and start again at the top of this message.

If it does look OK then click the Save button and give it a name. You're done.

[Solo175]

Starting to get the hang of this. I am using the Arcsoft Photo Studio and their manual is a bit of tough slogging. Tells me how to do things but not why I want to do them. I found the slider thing but couldn't see any visible difference when sliding back and forth. Also it didn't indicate any file size when doing so.

Thanks for all your help and will search the Avatar thread.

[Scottes]

I don't know Photo Studio - never even heard of it. It might not have a way to to save JPGs and adjust the size like this... I just don't know.

[Ikinaa]

On the Internet you can find a lot of programs just for resizing jpegs for the web :

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=program+resize+jpeg+web+freeware

[Solo175]

I don't know Photo Studio - never even heard of it. It might not have a way to to save JPGs and adjust the size like this... I just don't know.

This software came with my camera G5. I was able to download a manual from their site www.arcsoft.com (http://www.arcsoft.com/).



To save an image file for the Web:

1. Click File on the Main Menu, then choose Save As from the

drop-down Menu. This brings up the Save As dialog box.

2. From the Save in drop-down list, select the folder in which to save

the file.

3. In the empty File Name field, type a name for the file.

4. From the Save as Type drop-down list, select JPEG File [*.JPG].

5. Drag the Quality slider to set the .JPG compression level – the

higher the value, the higher the image quality.

6. Click Save to save the file, or press Cancel to abort.

7. Open the saved file to examine its quality. To try a higher or lower

compression, repeat Steps 1 to 5 until the desired result is achieved.


These are the instructions from the manual. It just seems kind of clunky to go back and forth to check file size :confused: . I have searched around for a more indepth tutorial for this software and it seems there aren't any available :mad: .

It seems most of you nice people are using Adobe PhotoShop or Paint Shop.

[kb244]

Just keep in mind if you use Photoshop CS or such, and you use an online gallery software that you would desire to show Exif data. Save for web seems to remove all exif data from the images to further reduce the file size, but then your exif information will not show up when you upload it into your gallery software.