How To Resize A Photo – Part 1: Digital Photography Tip of the Week

Along with my position as President of the Niagara Falls Camera Club, I am also maintain the club website. Recently, I asked our members to send me some images to add to the website, after all, we are a photography club. I was surprised when I was asked by a few different members how to size the images as I had requested images no larger than 1000 pixels on the longest side, which leads me to todays tip, how to resize a photo.

Once again, I will be using the new Adobe Photoshop Elements 5, though the procedure is the same in previous Photoshop versions, and in most other image editing programs.

Resizing your photo should be the last step you take in your image processing workflow. I recommend saving your image in its full size, then after resizing your image, saving as a new file name. This preserves your original data just in case you decide later on that you want a larger size image.

To access the Image Size dialog box, Click on the Image menu item, then Resize and finally Image Size. The dialog box has two sections and a few options. The first section deals with image size for display (Pixel Dimensions) and the second image size for printing (Document Size). We will stick with just the display options today. The width and height will be populated already with your current image size in one of several measurement units. Also notice that there is an icon to the right of the measurement units linking the sizes together. This is turned on or off using the Constrain Proportions check box below. When turned on, your aspect ratio will remain the same as you change your image size, and also, as you change one number, the second will change proportionately.

imagesize.gif

In this example, my original image is 1200 px by 1161 px. To resize the image, simply enter a new value for width or height and the other will change appropriately. Click OK, save your image and you are done.

Next week, I will discuss the options in the bottom of the dialog box as well as the Document Size options.

The digital photography tip of the week is written by the PCIN Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Chris is a long time photographer and is currently the President of the Niagara Falls Camera Club. You can see more of his photography at his Photo of the Day website.
If you have a tip to send Chris, or a question about digital photography he can address in the newsletter, send it to chris@pcin.net.

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