Some customers find the editor we use very easy to upload images. One of the issues is that some customers upload very large images, exactly as they were exported from a certain program or from a digital camera. There is an easy way around this, using a program which is included with Windows called Paint. It can resize JPG images from your camera and make them smaller on screen and smaller in file size.
Why would you want to do this? The first reason is that the file can be around 5 times smaller in file size just by shrinking the image dimensions by 50%. This means the image is much faster for you to upload and for browsers of your site or newsletter recipients it downloads faster. Secondly it will fit on screen without having to scroll horizontally if it is a reasonable width.
Ideally your image should be about 800 pixels wide or smaller, depending on the layout of your site. You can find out how wide the image is by finding the file, right clicking and selecting Properties. It should tell you the dimensions in pixels.
Resizing Instructions
- Once you save the original image, right click the resulting file and select Open With... Paint.
- In paint, go to the Image menu, and select Stretch/Skew.
- On the Stretch percentage boxes set the percentage on both, leave the Skew boxes alone.
- Save the image, you will find the resulting JPG file is a lot smaller in file size than the original.
You'll neeed to figure out your final width as a percentage of the original, so if it is about 1600 pixels wide you want 50% to get around 800 pixels. You can always play with these settings and view the result to get to the desired size.
