Clam asked me to do a brief tutorial on how to re-size images of your entries for the Brush Slave League…so thats what this thread will be about.
However…:~…as I really started to think about this I came to the conclusion that…as we say in the states…there are a thousand ways to skin a cat…:o There are also a thousand ways to resize a photo…
I personally use Photoshop as my photo editing software and know how to manipulate images with this package pretty well…but that info is not necessarily transferable across software packages…of which there are a million these days. So I thought I would start this discussion by laying out some general rules of thumb to follow about image size and quality and post some links to software specific tutorials.
Image Size Versus Resolution/Quality.
These terms are some time used interchangeably but really mean different things entirely…so some clarification is needed. Image Size refers to the number of Pixels wide and tall a picture appears as on your screen. Resolution refers to the density of data packed into those pixels…and is really more important when you are talking about PRINTING an image rather than viewing it on the internet…which is what we care about for this contest…for our uses set the resolution to 72 dots per inch (dpi)…you DO NOT NEED ANY MORE THAN THAT…trust me.
As for photo size…Clam has stipulated that image size can be no bigger than 800x800 pixels…this is plenty large for a photo of a 3 figure team and will fit comfortably on most computer screens without the need to scroll to view the whole image. It is also the right size to show off the good qualities of your painting…but not so large as to show off any flaws…
Now keep in mind that most modern digital cameras take pictures that are MANY times this size in their unaltered form…even my iphone takes pictures that are 3264x2448pixels! This is WAY bigger than we need for viewing on the web…hence the need for this discussion.
Ok…so all of that boils down to we are looking for images no bigger than 800x800 pixels…with a resolution of 72dpi.
So how do we achieve this goal? Well…thats going to depend on what software you are employing to edit your raw photos. As I was researching how to present this information I came across a TON of great videos on youtube that are software specific.
This is a good one that shows you how to do it with an online program…you don’t even need the software on your computer…as well as showing how to do it in the Free photo editing software called GIMP (which I’ve heard good things about)
In fact if you search “resize Photos with X” (X being your software package) on youtube you will find many tutorials that will be helpful…yes some are dreadful as well…but this isn’t rocket science…glean what you can from them and move on. Once you’ve done this a couple of times you’ll not need advice again.
So I hope this doesn’t seem like a cop-out to a real tutorial…I’m of course more than happy to answer any questions that I can. Please feel free to use this space to link to any tutorials that you find on the web that you think will be helpful to others.
We have some time until our first teams are due so now is your chance to get this kind of stuff dialed in and figured out so that all your shots are of the right size and the highest quality.
Good instruction, I guess anyone who is not a regular user of programs like Photoshop could understand (though I use it on a daily basis so it was quite obvious for me already haha).
I would have to agree with Blue, in that for people who don’t have photoshop, but want a powerful program for FREE. The program of choice is indeed GIMP: http://www.gimp.org/. Keep in mind this is not a simple program, and can be very daunting to learn, but a good photoshop substitute. You can also use GIMP to correct your photos, like contrast and white balance, as well as many other photo tweaking. It is indeed a great program.
Another term/word to search on, for re-sizing is ‘Cropping’, this also helps with making your images smaller, by simply, cutting away and discarding the outer parts of your image, just like cutting a real life photo with scissors. For tutorials, (just like Blue suggested), go to youtube and type in “Cropping using X” (where X is your program of choice.
Ok…Here goes. I don’t have a flikr acct. so if someone who does could investigate that I would appreciate it. If its anything like Photobucket…its super easy!
PHOTOBUCKET RESIZING
Alright guys this is a SUPER easy alternative for resizing images that you host in your photobucket account (http://photobucket.com/).
1. Upload your raw image. As it will be quite large, 1-3mb depending on your camera, it will take a minute or two…but not too long.
2. Open Album that the image is stored in
3. Open the Image you hope to resize by clicking on it
4. If you hover your mounse pointer over the image…up near the top you will see several tabs appear…you want the one called “resize” If you put your pointer on that tab you will get a drop down menu with a variety of image sizes you can use. the largest is 640x480 (depending on the proportions of your image). This is not the max allowed for the contest but would create a reasonably sized photo for our contest…so if you are looking for fast and easy just pick the biggest option from this drop down that is less than 800pixels. If you want more control over the exact size of the image then continue to 5.
5. Click on “More options” and it will take you to the full editing program. This allows you to crop, rotate, add text…etc.
6. Click on the “Basic” tab…and then click the “resize” button. If you click on that it will allow you to customize the size of your image. This is where you can get it to 800pixels…just type the dimensions you want into the text boxes there and the program will size automatically.
7. When you have it where you want it…click the “Save a Copy” button at the bottom of the window.
So this smaller image is the one you will want to send to Clam when its due.
Give it a try its super easy…plus photobucket is a great place to store your online pictures.
I just wanted to take the opportunity to let everyone know that Adobe has decided to release their Creative Suite 2 without need authentication. This suite includes Photoshop 2…and even though it is almost 10 years old it is still an extremely powerful photo editing software…and now its FREE! So if you need good software for managing your photos check out his link:
