I'm confused about "resizing" -- please advise...

[TimothyW]

I use "The Print Shop" software (Broderbund) to create graphics for my sites.

Then I convert the graphics to jpeg -- but the resulting files are HUGE! (28mb+).

Then I use paint.net to "resize" the file down to 2mb or so.

In paint.net the resize options are...

- Best Quality
- Bicubic
- Bilinear
- Nearest Neighbor

I just always pick "by percentage" + "best quality" -- figuring it would give me -- well -- the best quality.

The problem is, in the resulting "resized" jpeg, the type is somewhat BLURRY -- makes you feel like it's out of focus somehow. Not jagged, just slightly out of focus.

Also, I see another resize program that gives one the option of "OPTIMIZE without resizing"

Huh?!? -- I thought "optimizing" WAS resizing! (synonymous)

What I want is HOW TO reduce the MASSIVE file size of these jpegs, WITHOUT having the type turn out blurry.

Please advise.

Thanks!

-- TW

[peterj]

Hi TW,

Resizing and optimizing are different. Resizing is like making a 2 foot square image a 6 inch square image.

Optimizing is making the image smaller in weight KB's without changing its original size.

So for the web, once you have the image size you want then, when you save for use on the web you need to optimise it''s weight as much as possible without loss of quality, so that your images load quickly in the browser window!

Hope that helps!

Pete

[TimothyW]

Is there any free online web-based jpeg optimizer?

Or -- is there any software you'd recommend?

I went here -- Reduce load time by optimizing graphics with GifBot -- but the file I tried is too big for them.

Again -- I need some way to take GIANT jpeg files and somehow reduce the size of the file WITHOUT losing the crispness of the type (text) part of the jpeg.

How?

-- TW

[Istvan Horvath]

I am not familiar with the software you are using... but, as in all the similar software, you may want to take a look at your initial settings.

WHY is it producing those huge files? For example, many users don't pay attention to the dpi (dot per inch) settings and go with 300 or higher values. Those values are OK for traditional print but on the web you never need values higher than 72.

In other words: try to fix the cause not the symptoms...

[mikestenger]

I use a program called GIMP which is free and open source so it's available for several platforms. I've used it for I don't know how many projects and it's been very good to me (pretty much eliminated the need for Photoshop).

Too, I've used this online image optimizer quite a few times so maybe that will be all you need.

[TimothyW]

Thanks Mike -- I'll see about GIMP (I've heard of it before).

As for the online optimizer you suggested -- no can do... their max beginning size is 300kb. I need to convert files that are 28mb+ (!)

[scraggz]

Gimp is great I use it for virtually everything but if all you want to do is resize, try irfanview, it's excellent. Just Google it, it's free.
Once installed just go to image menu > Resize/Resample.

[TimothyW]

But what's the difference between "resizing" + "optimizing" ??

[netkid]

TW,

I have a solution for you.

I go to a free online photo editing site called Phixr.

1) go to Phixr - Online Photo Editor
2) click the large button called "edit a photo"
3) click "OK,continue" (you do not have to join)
4) click the "browse" button and find the photo file you want to resize in your hard drive.
5) click the "upload the chosen photo to phixr" button.
6) there you will see a copy of your picture.
7) click the resize button on the left column. You will see that you have many choices, you can choose resize based on percentage of actual, or resize to the pixels you want. I would recommend you resize to around 300 pixels by 300 pixels, but you can choose any size you want.
8) once you are satisfied on the size, click the download button ".jpg" back to your hard drive.

The whole process can take no more than 5 minutes.

Hope that helps!

Bruce

[netkid]

TW,

I forgot to say that Phixr does not affect the clarity of your resolution during this whole process...so if you have a clear picture from the start, it will resize without making it blurry or disturbing resolution. Cool huh?

Bruce

[Alexa Smith]

You might want to have a look at Resize, Shrink, Sketch, Blur, Grayscale and Crop Images or photos online

[scraggz]

Originally Posted by -- TW

But what's the difference between "resizing" + "optimizing" ??

There are only three areas where you can save pixels(bits) from your image and therefore your filesize. bit depth (number of colours), resolution, and dimension. So to optimise (I'm English, hence the 's') without reducing the size of the image would mean reducing the bit depth and/or the resolution, less ppi, and/or increasing the compression but you can only compress so much before you lose quality. Depends on the format as well. GIF is a lossless compression where as JPG isn't.

If you resize an image from say, 800 x 400 to 400 x 200 you obviously lose some pixels. So, a decent image resizer has to cope with maintaining the quality and colour of the original and in effect optimises the image. As far as I'm concerned an image resizer is the ultimate image optimiser.

In Irfanview for instance a 2500 x 2000 image resized to 1250 x 1000 drops from a file size of over 2Mb to less than 200kb without any loss of quality. As you probably realise making an image smaller generally makes it sharper.

If you are using Print Shop for your images I would be converting them to GIF as I'm guessing they are illustrations rather than photographs. You shouldn't then lose any of the definition on the text.

GIF for illustrations, JPG for photographs and PNG when you have transparency.

Hope this helps.