Technology

What You Need to Know About Resizing Your Digital Photos

After taking them with a digital camera, you’ll need to learn how to resize digital images if you want to share them with others via social media or email. We’ll analyze the factors driving this requirement and discuss practical solutions.

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So, let’s start with the why. Why is it necessary to downsize digital images?

The digital photo created and uploaded using a digital camera is pretty sizable. A camera with more megapixels creates even larger images. Therefore modern, high-quality cameras outsize their analog predecessors.

When shopping for a digital camera, it’s a widespread misconception that more megapixels equal more excellent picture quality. The camera’s megapixel count determines the image quality at a given size. It would not be easy to see the difference between a 10MP and a 14MP camera when viewing a 4×6 print. You won’t notice the change in quality unless you visit or print a big-size image.

A more significant mega-pixel number means a higher quality camera and a larger file size. This is the crux of the issue. You probably don’t want the digital images to sit on your computer once you’ve copied them from your laptop (a process that will take longer if the files are enormous). You should forward them to friends or post them on social media.

Let’s take a closer look at the precise issue that may arise. My mother had taken pictures of the grandchildren the day before and was trying to email them to me. After “attaching” the images to the email, she continued getting a message that the files were too big. My mother could not send the email because she failed to resize the digital photographs.

Therefore, learning how to resize images to be easily shared with others is essential.

In such a case, how do we reduce the size of our digital photographs?

It’s simpler than you would imagine. ImageResizer is a free tool provided by Microsoft as part of their “PowerToys for Windows XP” package. The “Microsoft Image Resizer” can be easily located through a web search.

After you’ve installed this program, you can right-click an image and select “Resize Pictures” to change its dimensions on the fly. In addition to the three pre-defined sizes, the Image Resizer allows you to enter your custom dimensions. 800×600 is the resolution I most frequently use.

The next natural question is, “Won’t the quality of my photos suffer after I resize them?”

Strangely enough, the answer is “not really.” Images can be shrunk in size by more than a factor of 10 with the Windows Resizer without suffering a discernible loss in quality. It combines simplicity with advanced features into a single, fantastic application.

My mom can now effortlessly email and post photographs to Facebook after I showed her how to use the resizer.

And there is this one thing I am sure of. You can easily resize photos, just like my mum, and she’s not tech-savvy.

You can see examples of before and after resizing on the page dedicated to that topic (how to resize pictures). There are a ton of additional helpful tutorials, such as “How to Record from a DVR to a Computer,” that you can peruse.

linda