Need assistance with digital photo resizing

[fett527]

I have taken a picture of my son and planned to submit to an online baby photo contest. We took the picture at the usual resolution which is to say the highest resolution, don't worry about filling up cards. We try to submit this and notice the picture size limit is 100K. They require .JPG or .GIF and limit it to 100K. The pictures I have are 1.4MB. I am a Network Admin but I haven't gotten into digital photo editing and am not schooled in what can and cannot be done with photos. Can I shrink the size of this file wihtout completely cropping off the picture? How can it be done if possible?

Thanks much!

 

[dvvega]

It all depends on the software you have available. Photoshop for example comes with a product called ImageReady.

What ImageReady does is give you multiple setting outputs for images (for example various JPG resolutions) and saves them for the web. You can tell it to limit file size to the smallest possible, and so forth.

Another way to minimise the size of your file is to check the size of the picture itself. A photgraph at 1024x768 pixels will take up a lot more space than a picture of 800x600 pixels.

Hope that gets you pointed in the right direction.

D

 

[fett527]

anyway freeware/shareware that will do the job? I'm in a pinch.

 

[fett527]

I just took a picture at the lowest resolution on my camera and it comes out to 460K. I appreciate them wanting to keep submissions manageable but come on.

 

[dvvega]

Hmm freeware ... let me see ...

try http://www.picasa.com/index.php

Picasa is by google so it should be okay.

D

 

[Aeolius]

try reducing the size of the image, i.e making it 400 pixels wide, or reducing the dpi to less than 100.

 

[fett527]

try reducing the size of the image, i.e making it 400 pixels wide, or reducing the dpi to less than 100.

Obviously I wanted to reduce the size. I just wasn't sure how to do it because I never tried before. MS Paint doesn't atually resize the picture as far as I could tell.

I did install the software that came with the camera and it allowed me to resize the picture and save it at a reduced resolution. The picture was originally 2016x1512 and it changed it to 640x480 and then saved under a NORMAL quality instead of FINE. The picture ended up being about 50K and still looked good in the picture viewer on XP.

 

[dvvega]

Excellent problem solved ... hope your baby does well

D

 

[fba827]

Obviously I wanted to reduce the size. I just wasn't sure how to do it because I never tried before. MS Paint doesn't atually resize the picture as far as I could tell.

Actually, my ms paint does -- it may be a version thing (I have the one that comes with windows XP - version 5.1). When you have the image open, go to Image -> Stretch/Skew and then fill in the percentage for vertical and horizontal stretching to be the same. like 25% and 25% (so that it maintains ratio and simply reduces size). Then, do a File -> Save As to a new file name....

But, again, that may be a version thing ...

 

[fett527]

Actually, my ms paint does -- it may be a version thing (I have the one that comes with windows XP - version 5.1). When you have the image open, go to Image -> Stretch/Skew and then fill in the percentage for vertical and horizontal stretching to be the same. like 25% and 25% (so that it maintains ratio and simply reduces size). Then, do a File -> Save As to a new file name....

But, again, that may be a version thing ...

Then again it could be I didn't spend enough time with it. I went to the Paint help and for picture size they say to use the Attributes and change the Width and height. This just crops the picture. I was impatient and didn't try the stretch/skew. Thanks though.