Thread: Resizing and Resampling

With all the 5 megapixel (or higher) digital cameras arbund the place, everyone seems to be taking really high resolution images of everything from vacation spots to family gatherings, and even their pets. Now if you're one of these shutter-bugs, and always click at the highest resolution setting for your camera, you probably have a lot of images stored that exceed 1 MB in size and have greater resolu¬tions than 1600x1200. Considering that the standard Desktop has a resolution of just 1024x768 (0.8 mega pixel), and most sites are designed with this reso¬lution in mind, uploading the complete 5 mega pixel image to your photo gallery is rather pointless. Do the visitors to your site really have to see how many wrinkles your grandmother has on the tip of her nose?



The first thing you should do is resize your images, before you even think of uploading them. In IrfanView this is easy. Just press [Ctrl] + [R] to get to the "Resize/Resample image" dialog box. Here, you can change the image resolution, but make sure you tick the Preserve aspect ratio check box so that you do not distort the image. Choose a saner size, even 800x600 is more than enough for any Web page, and make sure you set the DPI (dots per inch) to 72 displaying an image on screen (for the Web) needs nothing more than 72 DP!. Also remember to make sure that the option to Resample is selected instead of Resize, because Resampling the image will provide better quality. Once your satisfied with the right size, just press [S] to Save As ... or [Ctrl] + [S] to overwrite the original.