Resize Pictures and Crop Them Too

Resize Pictures

If your first experience with a digital camera was anything like mine the pictures you took with your new digital camera where huge when you uploaded them to your computer. You don't want to put these oversized pictures on your Web site for a couple reasons.

First of all, they are huge. They would take up your whole page. That's no good, is it? You want to be able to write things on the page, tell stories about the pictures, have a border. There's no way you can do anything else with a page with one of these pictures on it.

The other reason you don't want to put huge pictures on your Web site is server space. Pictures take up a lot of space, Web site space. I don't mean the amount of space it takes on the page, I already told you about that. I mean the amount of space you have on your Web site's server. Let's say you get 20mb of space for your entire web site. Then you upload a whole bunch of huge pictures to the server. There's not going to be much room for Web pages or any other pictures. This is why you need to resize your pictures.

Before you start you need to download graphics editing software. You don't need anything fancy. I, personally, use IrfanView. It's easy to use and free. That's the program this lesson is based on, but most of them will be very similar.

How to Resize Pictures

1. Open the picture in the program. To do this click on "file" and then "open" in the top menu, then choose your picture.

2. Click on "image" then on "resize/resample" to open the resizing box.

3. Make sure the "preserve aspect ratio" button is clicked. This protects your pictures from becoming distorted while you are resizing them.

4. Choose the size you want your picture to be and click "OK".

5. If you don't like the size that your picture has become click on "edit" then "undo". Start over.

6. If your picture is a little blurry you can click "image" then "sharpen". If you don't like the sharper look you can click "edit" then "undo" to get rid of it.

7. If you are trying to make your pictures bigger they will become blurred. To do this without blurring you will need to purchase really good photo editing software such as Photoshop.

8. If you like the new size click "file" then "save" to save the new size or click "file" then "save as" and save the new size as a new picture.

Crop Pictures

Cropping is when you cut your picture so that you only keep a certain part of it and get rid of the rest. This is great when you have a group picture but you only want to keep the picture of yourself. Just crop around you and lose the rest. Or, when you have a full body picture but you only want the part where your face is you can crop the picture.

How to Crop Pictures

1. Open the picture in the program. To do this click on "file" and then "open" in the top menu, then choose your picture.

2. Point to one corner of the part of the picture you want to keep and hold down the mouse button.

3. Drag the cursor to the opposite corner of the part of the picture you want to keep. You will see a box form around the part you want to keep.

4. When the box surrounds the the part of the picture you want to save let go of the mouse button and click "edit" then "crop selection".

5. Click on "edit" then "crop selection".

6. If you like the cropped look click "file" then "save" to save the new size or click "file" then "save as" and save the new size as a new picture.