Photo size

[angloasturian]

I've posted quite a few photos since my camera (E-PL1) arrived and they always appear in the post just a little too big - they go off the screen and there's a slider at the bottom for seeing the whole photo. How can I reduce the photos' physical size so they fit in the post frame? I'm shooting at 'Large' (4032x3024) and my file sizes are usually between 2 and 2.8MB. Many thanks.

 

[Brian Mosley]

Hi Colin,

do you have any post processing software? if you're running on a PC, faststone image viewer is free, and will allow you to resize your image for the web. 1024 wide is the maximum width for embedded posts really.

Cheers

Brian

 

[angloasturian]

Thanks Brian. Yes, I have ACDSee which I use to organize and crop. I rarely retouch - although I may have to start to maintain the standards of this wonderful forum!
If I send a photo to the editor and select 'Resize' it gives me the posibility of changing the pixel count. If I put in '1024' (as you suggest) it automatically sets height at '768' (for a normal 4:3 image). Very often, as I tend to crop most of my photos, the pixel count comes out slightly different. The resulting photo is usually between 250 and 300KB. The photos look OK on the monitor - but do you always lose so many KBs? I read the thread where Amin said we now have 100MB per member and can chose between 10 x 10MB or 500 x 200kb. How on earth do you get a 10MB image to fit on the screen??
By the way, as I posted in Herman's thread 'Filesize of image' in 'Housekeeping', I use a simple little programme called 'Photogadget' which has several preset resizing possibilities (one of which is 1024 x 768), but has the advantage over ACDSee in that it can process multiple images simultaneously.

 

[angloasturian]

Brian, I downloaded the FastStone viewer and it's almost identical to ACDSee. However, unless I'm mistaken, it can only resize one image at a time. Photogadget can do 100. I intend to persevere and compare the two (FastStone and ACDSee) - whichever wins will be the one I use from now on. Many thanks again for your help

 

[Brian Mosley]

Hi Colin, I save my jpegs at 97% quality (there should be an option to control compression level in your jpeg export) - which leads to file sizes around 450K

It looks like your compression level is a little more aggressive, but probably not noticeable. I would try a lower compression level (higher quality) and see whether you can tell the difference.

Uploading 10MB images seems a bit silly to me.

Cheers

Brian

 

[Amin Sabet]

Colin,

The file size (in kb) has to do with two things: the image quality when viewed at 100% and the image size (in pixels).

If you want to preserve a large (4032x3024) size image at excellent quality, it will have to be at least a couple MB in size. When you reduce that same image to 1024 x 768 in size, you can get a file size of a couple hundred kb with a similar level of image quality. By comparison, a max quality 4032x3024 JPEG will put you at around 10MB (depending on the content), whereas a max quality 1024 x 768 JPEG will put you at around 1MB.

So, the short answer is that 250-300 kb is about right for a 1024 x 768 image.

 

[grebeman]

Is it not also the case that resolution has an element to play, the photographs are viewed on a monitor at either 72 ppi for windows/linux and I believe 96 ppi for Mac, so the image should be resampled to 72 ppi, an image could be the same physical dimensions but much bigger in file size terms if it were uploaded at a resolution of say 300 ppi which would be used for printing.
Barrie

 

[angloasturian]

Brilliant Brian! I just put a 2,4MB photo in the ACDSee editor, set it for 1024 x 768 - if you then try to close the programme it asks you if you want to save the changes and you get a window where you can set the compression. I put 97% (like you said) and I got a 378,4KB image. Photogadget doesn't give you this option, so it's between ACDSee and FastStone now. Thanks to everybody!

 

[Rich M]

Is it not also the case that resolution has an element to play, the photographs are viewed on a monitor at either 72 ppi for windows/linux and I believe 96 ppi for Mac, so the image should be resampled to 72 ppi, an image could be the same physical dimensions but much bigger in file size terms if it were uploaded at a resolution of say 300 ppi which would be used for printing.
Barrie

Don't forget to do what Barrie said......72 ppi is all you need for the web (and if you have the choice of colorspace.....sRGB)

R