Photo help?

[Musetta]

so...having issues with website photos !
They were HUGE when I downloaded them from my camera...too big to load well on my website...so...resized to a more manageable size...but now they don't really look very good (some worse than others) - fuzzy. Any tips/tools?

Also...maybe I am resizing TOO small? How many kb is "normal" for a webpage?

Sorry if these questions seem very basic and stupid! (I am a bit technically challanged!!)

[KathyG]

Hi Musetta, mine range from 13-21K, what programme are you using to resize them?

[NeatandPicky]

I use IrfanView which is a brilliant free photo editing package (just Google it to find how to download). This will convert them to 640 by 480 size which is perfect for websites.

[Rosbif]

Hi Musetta

I think most web photos are 72 to 150 dpi, then whatever size you prefer, it maybe that you have changed the dpi to be too small to cause them to go fuzzy??

Carole

[Musetta]

hmmm...i must really be doing something wrong...I do have IrfanView ...and when I resize to 640x480 they are still large...file-wise, not real size-wise (pbviously)just tested one by changing it to that size and it's still 898KB (!) which seems too big for me to use on a site? no?

[Stu]

Musetta,

when you save the files after resizing them, be sure to save at around 75% of normal size. Then check the file size again by right clicking on the picture and selecting 'properties'. If the size is still too large, go through the saving process again but select a lower %age.

Hope that helps?

[Musetta]

hmmmm...still think I'm doing something wrong...most of the photos I changed on the website now are at about 20% (or less!) of the origionals to be under around 30kb - which makes them tiny and people can't click to see them bigger...becasue they aren't bigger....also having fuzzynes issues when I'm changing sos much from my origional...hmm...thiniking maybe I shuld use a different camera? I'm clueless! (just want them to be viewed ok - I have a fast computer, but I know how really, really, really frustrating it was for me before I got it when I was trying to load webpages with a lot of big photos!)

[Stu]

Saving as a %age of the original shouldn't physically reduce the size Musetta, just the file size, so I agree. There's something else. Are you saving the files from the camera as jpegs?

[Musetta]

hmmmm...though i was (!) will need to double check and play with this some! thanks for the suggestion...does help to know i'm messing something up and this isn't something i just have to deal with! thanks.

[Rosbif]

Have you changed the dpi??? If you want send me a PM and I will give you my email address to see if I can save one how you want it?

Carole

[vrooje]

I could be wrong about this, but I thought the dpi didn't affect how an image appears on a screen -- only the size at which it prints. Pixels are a fixed size on a monitor; it's the printer that can change how many pixels it crams into a square inch. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, though!

Musetta, my guess is that you've got the compression turned up too high, but I'm not sure -- could you perhaps post a before & after example?

[paolo]

The maximum resolution a monitor displays is 72 dpi, so there is no point in showing pictures at a larger resolution, unless you want them to be of good printable quality. You shouldn't make them less than 72 dpi either.

[Rosbif]

Thats what I thought Paolo 72dpi for screen display. If you save it as 72dpi rather than 300dpi which a lot of cameras will take high resolution images at, then the file size will be much smaller.

Carole

[Musetta]

ahhhhhh. ok. think the dpi must be the problem (which is why I was not aving a problem with photos from my son's junky camera !! going to give it a go in the morning...just start from scratch with one photo and see what happens!
Thank you all!!!

p.s. Carole, your offer is so very kind!! thank you! I will try to see if I can manage fixing on my own first...and then ya may hear from me !

[vrooje]

If you save it as 72dpi rather than 300dpi which a lot of cameras will take high resolution images at, then the file size will be much smaller.

I don't mean to press the issue, but I don't believe that's quite right...

Here are two images, both 262x350 pixels:

Both are 72 kB in size (the compression is very low, so these are pretty big files given their size in pixels).

Can you guess which one is 72 dpi and which one is 314 dpi?

You wouldn't be able to tell the difference until you tried to print them. The dpi just tells the printer how to translate pixels into inches. The duck on the left will print about the same size that it is on your screen, because the dpi is set to the same as what your monitor displays. The duck on the right will print as a teeny thumbnail of about one square inch. But on the screen, they are exactly the same.

It's the file dimensions in pixels (e.g. 262x350 above) that affects the file size in kB, not the dpi.

Of course, I've done this with essentially uncompressed images. Maybe the relationship between compression level and file size in kB changes with dpi, but I don't see why that would be. The dpi is likely just a number stored in the headers of the file and has nothing to do with the image data itself...