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Resizing images for dummies.... A quick How to....

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:17 am
by Stereo
I've noticed more and more that people on these forums are posting massive pictures that take up three quarters of the thread. And Madkaw was quite right, if they are uploaded to the forum it will increase traffic HEAPS...

Hopefully these instructions will help those people out.... they are pretty easy to follow....

This is mainly for those who upload pictures to their photobucket and what not. And even more so, for people who upload directly to the forum...

First of all, you need to download a program called IrfanView. It's rad.

The program itself is 876 KB which shouldn't take too long for either dialup or cable.
By the way this is a windows only application, so you mac users.. well you're basically screwed.. just kidding. Anyway here's the links where you can download it .

[] http://www.dotmac.com.au/shae/iview.exe
[] http://www.zenriot.com/random/iview.exe

Ok now that you have it, install it.

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[] First is first, you need to click the run button in order to install it.

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[] Next this window will come up, for the more advanced users you'll know what to do but for most people just click next. It'll install the desktop shortcut and what not all automatically. DOn't install any of the eBay toolbar stuff. That's a No No.

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[] Another window will then come up but you just click Next as it only describes the new features in this version. First of all you must click NONE to make sure this program doesn't over-ride any current settings in which your image files open. This is most important, I know I get pissed off when I install an application and it takes over all the files that I need and opens it with something else. After having selected None, just click Next.

Ok now to actually do the bloody image!

[] First of all locate the file you want, Right click it, then go to "Open With" then select the IrfanView application.

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[] Now that the totally rad program is open, you can have a little play with it and see what features are included in it. However this is a faq on making decent sized images to post on forums not Modern day Art 101 so we'll continue on. Now that you have your image open in the program, click on the Image tab, then Resize/Resample.

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[] Ok in doing that it should bring up something similar to this. Now there's a few ways to resize your image and i'll go through the three basic ones. First of all, a normal sized imaeg is considered to be about 400x400 pixels, anything above that really is ridiculous and annoying. If the image you have is a standard 800x600, you could simply click on "Half" and that halves the current ratio which inturn would be 400x300. Secondly there's the manual way to do it where by you put new values in "Set new size". Having said this take notice of the "Preserve aspect ratio" option on the bottom which simply means to keep "it's shape". If you don't select it and you choose any random numbers for the new value, then you're going to get a stretched and ugly image, think Courtney Love in last months issue of Womens Weekly.. :mrgreen:

So basically you can either click "Half" till it's at about 300x300 or 400x400 ish, or you could do it manually. Finally there's the preset ones under the "Half" and "Double" options but they're values are a little big for the forum so I tend to ignore them when posting in forums.

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Finally click ok. Then it's your sub-standard File>Save as then select the folder in which you wish to save it in and wallah. You have yourself a nice pic ready to upload to photobucket or where ever and not annoy the rest of the melband community. This can also be used in your avatars people. Please actually, USE IT on your avatars if you have one that's like 300x300. It's pretty silly to see massive avatars from some of the users that have been around for a lot longer than I have, but meh. A normal avatar size is about 100x100.

All in all I think it's an awesome application and is very useful, christ it loads x10 quicker than Photoshop does and you don't need to purchase *coughs* anything *coughs*. Hope this helps least one person..

p.s. I stole these instructions from another forum.... please let me know if you find anything hard to follow... Just PM me or email eelko@aanet.com.au

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:35 am
by javaman
Someone that actually writes a doco !! I'm impressed :D

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:40 am
by MadKaw
Yes, thanks Stereo.

Or alternatively, everyone probly has "paint" on there puter, its under accessories..
Open your pic using that, click on "image" then click on "sketch skew" and under stretch put in 50 % or something. You can see the image size by clicking on "attributes" in the same pull down..
Then save and post away...:-)

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:58 am
by RG
Good job there Stereo.
Now there's no excuse for ppl not to know.

I use FastStone Photo Resizer 1.4, free to download n use. Works the same.

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:03 am
by Stereo
MadKaw wrote:Yes, thanks Stereo.

Or alternatively, everyone probly has "paint" on there puter, its under accessories..
Open your pic using that, click on "image" then click on "sketch skew" and under stretch put in 50 % or something. You can see the image size by clicking on "attributes" in the same pull down..
Then save and post away...:-)
Yeah, but paint compresses files really badly.... JPG and TIF files end up being a huge filesize even though they are small images....

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:04 am
by Stereo
javaman wrote:Someone that actually writes a doco !! I'm impressed :D
Thats what I do for a living :) or at least part of what I do for a living.... Currently I am writing a document entitled "Details floor joists in a 3D environment".

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:05 am
by mick_dundee
Like Madkaw, I just use paint, does the same thing.

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:54 am
by Mizz ZZR
Me too, but didn't wanna piss off Stereo :P I agree that Irfanview is a totally rad program though. I have to keep my downloads to a minimum cause I think my 6 year old computer is about to go to god! :shock:

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:56 am
by zbeast
I use the software that came with my digital camera. Can't remember what its called but you can select the sizes you want.

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 1:26 pm
by mrmina
why are u people scared of dave :twisted:

dont worry theres no sugar

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:49 pm
by Neka79
thanks stereo...my mrs has all these fancy farking programs and i cant use any of em...i d/l ur program cos u say its easy to use..if its not, im gunna kick ur ass man...
thanks for the info too...

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:14 pm
by Gosling1
that looks pretty good, but is there any real advantage over Photoshop ? I only started using it a couple of months ago, and it has reduced my picture file sizes from ridiculous 300-400kb down to a far more pleasant 30-80kb for most things.........its *really* easy to use for a certified *gumby* like meself.........and the photos still look OK ??

But always happy to try something else if it is not too *difficult* (except washing dishes/making beds/changing nappies/cooking. All those are far too difficult..)

8)

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:12 pm
by balanse
Whatever you use its a subject that people often dont understand how to do.

Bugs me plenty when you have to scroll around a mammoth pic.

Maybe this thread should be a sticky??

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:25 pm
by x913
Gimp is another easy to use program thats free to download. just google it

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:32 pm
by Gosling1
x913 wrote:Gimp is another easy to use program thats free to download. just google it
:shock: I tried googling *gimp*, and man, I can't begin to describe what is out there :shock:

no way am I using that shit !!

8)