shrinking pictures to attach

[salbwil3]

Help please in shrinking pictures to attach ???
salbwil3

 

[Dunadan]

I always just right click on the full size picture, click Edit, which usually open the picture in Paint, then click on the Image option at the top, click on Stretch/Skew (or simply hit CTRL-W after opening your picture), then change the Stretch Horizontal/Vertical value from 100% to something like 50% (depending on the original image size).

 

[webbie]

See:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/27/
also:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/8208/


One member suggests this:
I have found this program very easy to use for novices, and its free
http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm

 

[Xena]

Not sure what Operating System you're using,
but if it's Windows XP then by far the easiest
is to install the Windows Power Toy Image Resizer.
It adds a "resize image" to your right click list.
Open folder, right click on picture icon, choose resize image.
Choose size (640 x 480 is always good for forums),
it saves the resized image in the same folder.
You can resize a crapload of pictures on the fly this
way. No addition programs needed.
Linky for anyone who wants it:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/ImageResizerPowertoySetup.exe

 

[webbie]

If you have a mac, the pics are usually in iPhoto - which has a "share" menu option, and that lets you choose the size - Zeta is right that 500-700 (wide) should do for most, unless you really want to show a lot of detail...I think I allow up to over 1000 pixels wide.

 

[Gooserider]

If you have a mac, the pics are usually in iPhoto - which has a "share" menu option, and that lets you choose the size - Zeta is right that 500-700 (wide) should do for most, unless you really want to show a lot of detail...I think I allow up to over 1000 pixels wide.

You may allow alot of width, but at least the last time I tried it, your 300KB size limit is the factor that I found was the barrier. I found that the only way I could reliably get a picture (JPEG) to go up was to shrink it from 1280 x 1024 (native camera resolution) to 640x480, and stick to the default quality setting - I do this with Krita in KDE.

Gooserider

 

[webbie]

Goose, you need some more tools...... one which has a JPEG slider or scale.....because it's pretty east to keep a 800 wide photo under 100K. See enclosed.....

900 wide, 107K - medium compressed jpeg

 

[Gooserider]

Goose, you need some more tools...... one which has a JPEG slider or scale.....because it's pretty east to keep a 800 wide photo under 100K. See enclosed.....

900 wide, 107K - medium compressed jpeg

Krita does have a slider, and while I have played with it a bit, I found that going much less than the default started costing details that IMHO lowered the picture quality more than the size reduction did. Your sample photo is OK, but I can see several areas in it where there is definite loss of quality. I particularly noticed it on the shingles and the leaves, but even your face was starting to degrade a bit. It might have shown more detail @ 640x480 w/ a medium high quality compression level.

I wouldn't mind having a better tool though, as right now I have to use a bunch of different tools to look at the photo, resize it, change it's name to something more useful than what the camera gives it, and move it to the right directory in my photo collection. If I want to add extra text to the picture, that requires yet another tool. I wouldn't mind having a "one-stop" tool that would let me do everything at once.

Some ways I do wish there was more of a "standard" for what websites wanted for picture specs and / or more "intelligent" picture handling by the web software - I've also been doing some stuff to inquire about hearth construction (tiling questions) over on the John Bridge "Tile your world" website (nice site - they do for tiles what Hearth.com does for wood burning) and they want pictures no more than 500x800, but their software isn't smart enough to understand that 640x480 is less than that, so I had to shrink the pix that I'd made to post here a second time...

Gooserider

 

[jtp10181]

Goose, do you need crystal clear quality when showing people pictures on here? I think even med-high JPEG compression would give a decent image for forum viewing. I don't know about you but I am not downloaing them and printing them out or anything. Maybe Goose has everyones fireplaces printed out and pinned on the wall? %-P

 

[webbie]

We definitely have storage space for larger pics, but a lot of folks are still on dial-up or slower connections, so a good rule of thumb is to keep them under 150K - you can get a really decent image at that....

There are also various qualities of the software that compresses the photos - Photoshop Elements (about $60 - but no Linux version) has a great "save for web" function. I'm not sure how well all those other methods mentioned here work....

 

[Gooserider]

Goose, do you need crystal clear quality when showing people pictures on here? I think even med-high JPEG compression would give a decent image for forum viewing. I don't know about you but I am not downloaing them and printing them out or anything. Maybe Goose has everyones fireplaces printed out and pinned on the wall? %-P

No, but I do like to have reasonable quality. I recall times when problems have been spotted in posted photos which might not have been noticed if the photo had been lower quality - or the flip side where things were thought to be there when a better photo would have shown it to be OK.

I am not complaining either way really, I just find that in keeping the size around 100K, there is a trade-off between size and quality, and that as one goes up the other goes down. My opinion is that the best balance seems to be around 640x480 or so.

Otherwise most of my comment is more to do with what I've got to do on my end, not the BBS end. Mostly I think Craig has it pretty well set up in terms of balancing picture size and so forth - I wouldn't mind being able to post a few more pictures per post, but that isn't a big deal.

Gooserider

 

[webbie]

I've been "creeping" it up - from 250 to 300K and from 3 pics to 4 pics as more folks have been getting faster connections.....so I can definitely increase it a bit - perhaps to 6 pics and 400K or so total. Keep in mind that unless people click on the pics, they will not have to load the 400K - just the thumbs.