How to resize your photos
Updated May, 8 2017
Have you ever thought that you would like to have your own gallery on the club’s website but got confused by the sizing requirements in the Photograph Submission Guide? Or maybe you wanted to submit a photo to be included in the slideshow that is shown at the beginning of the General Membership Meetings but didn’t know how to resize your photo to the specification in the announcement. Well I’m not going to try and explain it here mainly because I don’t know what software you have on your computer to do the resizing. What I am going to do is provide some links to websites where you can learn how to do it. It’s really pretty easy. If you do not have any photo editing software that is capable of setting both pixel size and resolution then at the bottom you will find information on free software.
Photos for the website
The basic instructions are to load your photo into your software. It’s best to start out with your highest resolution (best quality) photo. Use either the RAW photo or the original photo out of the camera. Load your photo into the resizing utility. Before making any adjustments make sure you have set your resizing utility to maintain the aspect ratio of the original photo. Now set your resolution to 144 DPI. If neither side of your photo exceeds 1400 pixels you are done. If one or both sides exceed 1400 pixels then adjust the longest side of your photo to 1400 pixels. Assuming you have the program set to maintain the aspect ratio of your photo the short side should automatically adjust.
Photos for the General Membership Meeting slideshow
As with photos for the website it is best to start with your highest resolution photo. Load your photo into your resizing utility. Before making any adjustments make sure you have set your resizing utility to maintain the aspect ratio of the original photo. Now set your resolution to 100 DPI. If longest side does not exceed 1900 and the shortest side does not exceed 1080 pixels you are done. If your longest side exceeds 1900 pixels then set that number to 1900 pixels. If after setting your longest side to 1900 pixels your shortest side exceeds 1080 pixels then set your shortest side to 1080 pixels. Assuming you have set your program to maintain aspect ratio the other side should automatically adjust.
That’s it. Pretty simple but if you need more help continue reading.
If you need more help
To start with it would help if you understood what image size and resolution are and how changing them affects your photos. For a good discussion on this topic check out these links.
An article that does a decent job of explaining image size and resolution: https://www.freedigitalphotos.net/blog/tutorials/image-resolution-explained/
Here is another one: http://www.photoshopessentials.com/essentials/image-resolution/
A YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMAYZH1SB5Q
Now that you understand the basic concepts I’ll give you some sources on how to do it with your specific software. Two of the three sources above discussed how to resize your images in Photoshop so I won’t provide any others for Photoshop.
Lightroom
Photoshop Elements
On1 Photo RAW
If you don’t have one of the above photo editing programs you can Google “how to resize an image in” followed by the name of your software. If your software does not allow you to adjust both the pixel size and the resolution (DPI or Dots Per Inch) or you do not have any photo editing software check and see if photo editing software that might have come with your camera has the ability to resize photos.
Finally there are free programs that you can download and install on your computer that will resize your photos. I looked at several online websites that will resize your photo online but none that I looked at will allow you to enter a DPI (Dots Per Inch) so they won't work.
Free Software
The best free software program I’m aware of that has resizing capability is Irfanview. It has a lot of features including a very capable photo resizer. You can download it here: http://download.cnet.com/IrfanView/?part=dl-&subj=dl&tag=button
IrfanView is a Windows only program. If you are a MAC user you can try this link and see if any of the programs listed will work for you. http://download.cnet.com/IrfanView/?part=dl-&subj=dl&tag=button It must be able to adjust both the pixel size and the resolution (DPI or Dots Per Inch)
If you are aware of any other free software that will adjust both pixel size and resolution please leave a comment with the name of the software.
Now that you know how to resize your photos I hope you will create your own gallery on the clubs website and send in a photo for the General Membership Meeting slideshow.
