Basic image resizing is very easy and every computer user should have some sort of skills in this so I'll do a step by step instead so those that don't know will know and help themselves.And, you are going to need to read this all. There is a habit with computer users who are not sure of their ability and give up without trying...it took me quite awhile to put just this together so I want to see some effort put into this and I do have a major pet peeve of not wanting to help those who don't try to help themselves first...be forewarned
First We Need A Program
There are thousands of image programs out there for working with images and chances are I've never used the one you have. Most of them go through the same things but for clarity I'm basing this off of a very good free one called Irfanview
- Go to Tucows download page for Irfanview 3.97
- On this page you choose which Operating System(i.e. Win98, WinXP, etc) you are using so you get the correct version.
- After the Operating System is chosen it takes you to a page where you choose which location you want to download from....normally faster to choose one close to you.
- Once it is downloaded go ahead and install it. Some just have to click on a run button to do so while others will have to double click on the icon of the downloaded program to start the install.
- Go ahead and open the program up
Opening and Zooming Images
Here is a picture of the top of the basic Irfanview controls.
- From the top line of the Irfanview click on Two windows will normally pop up at this point. One is the location of where you want to save it so find your new "resized" folder you created and the other window is quality settings. The default settings in the check boxes are normally fine but the sliding scale for quality can be played with if the byte size is too high.
Dropping it down to 90% or even 80% is pretty typical and what occurs is that it compresses the image information together so it takes up less bytes. - To find specifications about the image you just opened click on image->information. The example below is 3204X1728 pixels...extemely large and does not show the full picture on my screen. You can also look at the bottom of the program which will show you some similar information.
- Click on the + or - magnifying glasses in the toolbar of Irfanview to zoom in or out....the bottom of the program will have a percentage and change up or down to let you know at what ratio you are viewing the image. You are not physically changing the image at this point but just zooming it in and out.
- Put the image back to 100% by clickin on either the + or - magnifying glasses
- From the top line of the Irfanview click on Image->Resize/Resample. This screen allows you to change size of your image in many ways but the easiest is to simply enter in a width in the width box. If I just enter in 400 for width here 300 will automatically show up in the height box because
"preserver aspect ratio" is picked and the image is origionally 4:3...if I enter in 800 for width, 600 will show for height. You can customize both the width and height by unchecking "Preserver Aspect Ratio" but your image will start distorting when you get away from the 4:3 sizes.
- Anyway, we want it 400X300 or less since it's for a signature so after having 400 for Width and 300 for Height click on ok which will then resize the picture.
- It's not saved yet so read on...
- Create a new folder on your pc somewhere where you keep track of your images. The way I do it is I already had this image saved in a folder named Hudson02 and I'd just create a folder named Hudson02_resized.
- Once the folder is created, from the top line of the Irfanview click on file->save
- Two windows will normally pop up at this point. One is the location of where you want to save it so find your new "resized" folder you created and the other window is quality settings.
The default settings in the check boxes are normally fine but the sliding scale for quality can be played with if the byte size is too high.
Dropping it down to 90% or even 80% is pretty typical and what occurs is that it compresses the image information together so it takes up less bytes. - Once the new image is saved you need to get it on the internet as you do your other images and link to it in your signature on DF. Another common thing to do when saving resized images is to make sure you aren't overwriting your origional....this is why the new folder, Hudson02_resized, was created. It is also common practice to rename the file to denote that it is resized from the origional. For example, if you have image.jpg you'd just name it image_resize.jpg. However you want to organize it but easier to keep track of if they are also named a bit different.
This if followed should allowyou to resize your pictures....of course this program can do quite a bit more than just resize. It has it's own Help for how to do most of it's operations.
Anyway, if you run into problems just ask in this thread. I'll need you to be specific for I don't deal with "I get an error" or "I can't do it"
If you have issues with this be as descriptive as you can including where exactly in the steps you had a problemthanks,
Steve
Lori JR