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I'm really confused about how to get good looking pictures on my website. My camera is a 4 megapixel. The smallest size pictures it will let me take is 600x400. So, say I have a good looking picture at 600x400. On some pictures I can then crop it some. This helps but on some pics I'd like to use the whole thing. Then I have to make it smaller in order for it to be a good website picture. Thats were the problem is. If I take an image thats 600x400 and size it down to like 150 or 200 pixels it looks terrible. Even if I just size it down a little it seems to loose a lot of quality. How do people get great looking small images on there websites? Is there some software that can size down images without loosing quality?? Are there digital cameras that can take good pictures at really small sizes?? I would really appreciate any info you guys have.

Colby,

I am not an expert in this, but I seem to get good results by taking a larger sized picture with the camera and using software to reduce the size of the file. I have noticed that the monitor I am using has a big impact on how the picture looks.

For example, my camera is taking 1600X1200 pictures which I resize to 400X300. The smaller pictures look pretty bad on my monitor at home, but look OK on the monitor at work.

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Colby,

If you use Photoshop or PS Elements, there is a Save for Web option that allows you to specify the physical dimensions and also image quality for use on the web. You can really save a lot in file size, which may then allow you to use a larger image. Using this method, you can often reduce the file size by half or more with little or no apparent loss in quality, and it's very easy.

"Normal" sizes for use on web don't have such high requirements in resolution or color depth as printed images do, so they still look really good.

There's a slew of freebie programs that can do this. iPhoto comes free on Macs and makes it very easy. PS and Elements, though not free, also make it very easy. For ease of use, you'll want something that allows you to "Save for Web" or Optimize or some such thing. Or you can experiment with something like MS Photo Editor and save in the jpg format using setting for quality gives you a presentable image.

In most cases, the jpg or jpeg compression format will give you the best bang for the buck, when it comes to photos.

burbank38877.6220717593

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Colby

www.microsoft.com

search for Image Resizer

download it, click on any picture and resize it from your mouse, nothing else needed. It takes your image from full size to one of four sizes with a couple clicks.

Lance shared this with me and I recommend it to all my friends who email or do websites. It's a breeze and spanks all other software's hiney for speed.   

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Specifics on above photo.

I have two quality cameras, a Canon Powershot A510, about $200. The other is a Nikon D70, about $1500. And now for my antique Sony FD73 which is seven years old. The Canon is 3.2 MegaPixel, the Nikon around 7 Megapixels, and get this the Sony is a .3 Megapixel, that's no typo.

After taking the above photo, I used Image Resizer to make it what you see above, piece of cake. Okay, it should be cropped, but still it's only 50KB in size. Around 30 is better for web.... good luck.

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[QUOTE=Hesh1956]

But any photo editing software will let you retain the pixel count per inch (the quality of the image) while resizing the image to any thing you want.[/QUOTE]

Hesh, Are you sure about that? Could you tell me a little more about it. I'm very interested. My computer came with two photo editing software programs. Microsoft "Picture It" and PhotoImpression. I don't think either one has what your talking about. They are cheap programs though. I would just hate to spend $70.00 on some software and it still not be able to do what I need it to do.

Bruce
I'm going to check out that Microsoft program too. Thanks!!

Colby here is a link of a Microsoft program that will make a resized copy of the pic. A download Box will open when you click the link. Open the pic an right click and you will see resize pictures. in the menu click on that and a box will open and you can pick the size. It works great.resizer

I just want to say that I do have Photoshop and Corel paintshop pro but I find the microsoft resizer simpler for what you want to do. Photoshop and corel have a steep learning curve. Unless you got hours to spare learning these programs I would use the resizer.

The M$ will do the trick, but I do quite like Irfanview for this kind of thing. It's mostly a viewer program, and doesn't have fancy image editing stuff built in (Basics, like rotating, resizing, resampling, etc.) but it has an effective batch processing system (lets you define size, quality, etc., pick a bunch of files to resize, hit a button, does the rest on its own). Besides, it's free.

I must admit, though, that my two most frequently used bits of software are RawShooter Essential (pixmantec, for processing digital photos shot in RAW, which is like a digital negative. Fantastically versatile) and Photoshop Elements, which came with my camera, and does pretty much all I want it to do.

Colby, just search around in Microsoft Picture It and you'll find the resize tools available.

I like to use that program for editing pictures, like this one I took on vacation. It was originally a horrible picture taken on the walkway of the zoo. These pair are soon to be newlyweds.

Using PictureIt, I antiqued it, then resized it, then caused it to become black and white with this effect:

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There's definitely many ways to do it, as everyone pointed out. I use
photoshop and save for web. This isn't the quickest way, but I also color
correct and what have you.

What the save for web does, and the others may do, is convert your image
to 72 dpi. This is an amazing way to save on the file size. Your camera,
though it may be 600x400, is most likely saving them at 180dpi for print.
Your monitor doesn't have that resolution - so strip away what you don't
see anyway.

I usually do 650 width (because I like size), save for web, quality 70. I
learned this from Jeremy Cowart.

The major difference between save as jpg and save for web in photoshop
is the conversion to 72. I use save as jpg whenever I intend to print.