Using Photoshop to reduce picture size

[irkwater]

Who can help us novice photographers to reduce a picture to the required forum size.

i`m sure myself and other members would post more pics if we knew ho to do this
How about some tuition George and Herb maybe
Regards irkwater [Brian]

[Chris_W]

Hi Brian,

Depending on which version of Photoshop you have, set your image size at about 8" high or 8" wide using a dpi of 72 (do not use anything higher for the web, those are only needed for print), then you can select either Save As... or Save for Web... Then choose a quality or compression setting of Medium (30 to 50%) or a setting of about 4 or 5. (These things will all depend on your particular program). Following these easy steps will always get you within the 150 kb file size limit, plus give a picture that is easy for people to load and easy to view on any monitor.

Hope that helps!

Chris

[George Nesfield]

Hi Brian,
If you cannot follow that tell us what the problem is and we will try to help, Herb is a whizz with photo shop he should be on here when he see's your post.
George.

[Herb]

O.K., here's trying. If anybody would like more explanation, please say so.

First thing to remember is that a limit on "size" measured in kilobytes is not a limit on the size - in the sense of the dimensions - of the picture. It's a limit on the size of the file that holds the picture.

Consequently, you can have a picture that's 800x600 pixels wide but it may be in a small file, such as 50kb or a big file such as 500kb. Big files can hold a lot more detail, while small files hold less. If the file gets too small, the picture that you see loses quality.

I don't use the latest version of Photoshop, but I'm guessing that the later versions work like mine (Photoshop Elements version2). Here are the two screens that I use in Photoshop to change the dimensions of pictures - I think they may be self explanatory -

http://www.pbase.com/mtu_fulani/image/117275823

http://www.pbase.com/mtu_fulani/image/117275836

Changing the size of the file holding the picture on the other hand can be very much hit-and-miss. I've found that by far the most convenient and easy way to reduce file size is to use the program called JPEG Optimizer.

Here are a couple of examples - the first picture is recorded in a file that's about 433kb - http://www.pbase.com/mtu_fulani/image/117275472

Now, here's the same picture in a file that's been reduced by JPEG Optimizer to only about 44kb -