Re-sizing For Forums

[Red Squirrel]

I've no doubt that this has been covered before so please excuse me.

I would appreciate some help please with regard to re-sizing images for putting on forums. This one included.

For instance I might have a picture that is, say, 4.89mb (4752 x 3169) and I have to re-size down to 800 x 533 making it 1.22mb.

So, what looks pretty good is reduced to something very mediocre and not worth bothering with.

I'm certain that I'm missing something here so any help would be appreciated.

[bripriuk]

Hi
You should not be having problems, everyone re-sizes their pics before posting.
What program are you using, and exactly what steps are you doing?

Brian

[Kayleigh]

You need an editing program like the gimp or equivalent its free to download from the web and is very basic for editing your pics for the web.
There are other programs too but I use the gimp..

[Geoff F]

You don't need those massive image sizes for computer viewing. It's only necessary for printing, and even then most modern cameras still have an excessive number of pixels unless you are printing at A3 or larger. Or doing a considerable amount of cropping.

As the other replies have mentioned, the exact procedure depends on your software.

However, my method is; resize using the Bicubic Interpolation setting, which might just be called Best Quality.

After resizing, some slight sharpening will be beneficial. There isn't one exact rule for the amount but I usually use something around Unsharp Mask at 0.6 amount, 0.5 radius and 0 threshold.

Some people recommend using the Bicubic Sharpener setting (if available) for resizing downwards but I find this gives a 'one size fits all' finish and prefer to do it manually.

If you still have problems your software might be doing something wrong.

Use a good quality Jpeg compression setting. I prefer to use 80% quality or a little higher. But this sometimes depends on the exact requirements of the web site; some are very strict on sizes.

And make sure you are using the sRGB Colour Profile. Some alternatives, like Adobe RGB don't look good on the web even though they may be best for printing.

And if you still have problems; come back with exact details of what you have done so that we can give more detailed advice.

[Red Squirrel]

Thanks all for your replies.

I use Photoshop Elements 6 for re-sizing.

I re-size down to 1000 pixel dimension width which gives me 666 height.

Please see result. You'll see a much softer image than is on my computer. I know because I posted this pic on another thread when asking for advice.

[Lancashire Lad]

All digital photos are inherently soft, and resizing does nothing to improve matters.

However, simply using Elements "sharpen image" as the very last step before saving the newly resized image will bring back the sharpness "bite" that images need for forum viewing.

I generally use Paintshop Pro to resize images for WAB, and, unless I have good reason to spend time on a particular image, my procedure is as simple as I can make it.

e.g.: -

Open the original full size image.
Do any minor editing, spot removal etc.
Crop as required.
Resize to 1250 long side (PsP maintains aspect ratio giving short side 833).
Hit the sharpen image button once. (Twice in exceptional circumstances).
Save the image as Filenamesmall (or whatever).
Job done - Upload to WAB.

Regards,
Mike.

[exo]

EDIT: I should have more caarefully read Lancashire Lad's 'howtouploadimages' post
http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/fo...tml#post657362

must not be larger than 1600x1600 pixels
must not exceed 0.5Mb (512Kb).

I was wondering about some aspects of this as well.

I think I read that the forum requests a minimum of 1024 pixels
- or is that only for Gallery, & Library / forum images can be any size ?

Say if you uploaded at 4000 pixels, presumably this gets processed/resized after upload to the forum's maximum acceptable size
- was wondering that is, anyone know - or is it purely Mbyte size limited?

-or does the full size get stored so people can see it,
when they click on the forum-thumbnail (160x120) to view the library image (880x660),
then click on View larger image (= upload size, or the max. forum-processed size?)
- up to now I've re-sized mine to 1024x768, which seems a bit small these days.
(perhaps it'd be easier just to try & see what happens).

btw should we / are we expected to retain the EXIF info in the picture ?
I know PSPro (ver.6) loses that info after re-size/re-save, PhotoShopElements & others keep the info OK.

also btw personally I've found bicubic splining can introduce some strange colour over-run details, especially at contrasty edges.
Bilinear resampling for photos seems smoother, but I guess it depends on the algorithm in your chosen editor.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by exo

Say if you uploaded at 4000 pixels, presumably this gets processed/resized after upload to the forum's maximum acceptable size
.

nope - if you upload over maximum file size in either pixels or mb it will just get rejected as too big

[Geoff F]

Just a thought about what may be the partial cause of this problem.

Larger images are shown at 3 different sizes. The little thumbnail which appears here and the basic quick load Gallery size which often appears a little soft.

But if you click on this basic Gallery image you get the full sized photo which, as in this case, is a lot clearer.

[Alan Hewitt]

This may be of interest!

Preparing Photographs For The Internet Alan Hewitt Photography