[Rhodes22-list] Resize photos

[Mark Kaynor]

Kari,

If you keep a couple of things in mind, you'll be able to produce a better
quality resized .jpg. I'll try not to get too technical here - please feel
free to ask questions if you don't understand something.

First, the .jpg format uses what's called "lossy" compression to keep the
files as small as possible. This means that a lot of information gets lost
in the .jpg compression process, making it unavailable to any new versions.
Here's a pretty good description of of losless vs. lossy compression:
http://www.widearea.co.uk/designer/compress.html. Whether you read it or
not, the bottom line is, if you want to produce good quality photos in
several sizes, make each copy directly from the original.

Second, when you resize a .jpg file, you should try to maintain the "aspect
ratio "- this is a ratio of the width vs. height. In other words, you should
reduce the length and the width by the same percentage. For instance, if you
start out with a 1280x960 pixel photo some common sizes you might resize to
are 1024x768, 800x600, 640x480, 384x288, etc. To fit the entire photo within
a 500 pixel limit, try using 500x375.

Many photo editing packages allow you to create a new, blank image file. I
use this method a lot when I want to focus on a particular area of a photo.
Create a new 500x500 blank, copy the original to the clipboard, then paste
it into the 500x500 blank. Then move the photo around inside the 500x500
area to center the area of interest. Sometimes, if that's too large, I'll
resize to one of the standard sizes above before copying and pasting. The
Important thing to remember is "maintain the aspect ratio wherever
possible".

Hope this helps.

Mark



----- Original Message -----
From: "Kari Day" <karihazen at yahoo.com>
To: <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 6:27 PM
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Resize photos


> Slim,
> At the request of the web-site that I send photos to,
> I make sure that the size of the photo is about 500
> pixels by 500 pixels. You can use any photo editor (I
> use the frebbie MS Photo Editor) to change the size of
> your jpeg file. Generally when the resize boxes comes
> up, inches is the default, but just change it to
> pixels.  This seems to work for me. However, I must
> say that I don't think the photo quality is as sharp
> as the original.
>
> Your boat is looking good.
>
> Regards,
> Kari Day
> S/V Daydream
>
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