Sizing for posting

[Fabs Forns]

Some of you have asked how to size your images correctly:

Here's a way:


And you had better do this while it is still TIFF or PSD file, as not to work on a jpg (every time you save a jpg it looses information)

Go to Image>Image size

Type 800 on the longest side. If you have checked the three boxes at the bottom, that is all you need to do about size. The proportions will be kept.
Make sure your image is in sRGB color mode for best web display.

If I remember CS, it was under Image>Mode, I may be wrong there because they keep moving this command around. In CS3 it is under Edit>Convert to profile

The go to File>Save for Web and look at the weight (kb) in the bottom left. If it is over 145 kb, go to the quality slider, upper right, and move it until you reach the allowed weight.
If you plan to keep using this weight regularly, there's a little drop menu on the right, see picture, choose optimize to file size and type 145 in the kb space. When you return the next time, click on the little drop menu again,go to Optimize to file size, click OK, and your image will have the desire weight.


Hope this helps.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great tutorial, Fabs!

[Emil Martinec]

FYI, you shouldn't need to convert the color space to sRGB when saving for web -- note your little flyout menu has the option "convert to sRGB" checked. The image will be saved in that color space. What I'm not remembering is whether you need to flatten the image or not before saving for web.

Also, don't forget to do a final round of sharpening after resizing and before saving the image. I like to do Smart Sharpen using the advanced setting, Lens Blur mode; for initial settings of the sliders, I start with amount 25-30, radius .3; and on the shadow and highlight tabs, fade amount 24-30, tonal width 12-15, and radius 2-3.

[Fabs Forns]

FYI, you shouldn't need to convert the color space to sRGB when saving for web -- note your little flyout menu has the option "convert to sRGB" checked. The image will be saved in that color space. What I'm not remembering is whether you need to flatten the image or not before saving for web.

Also, don't forget to do a final round of sharpening after resizing and before saving the image. I like to do Smart Sharpen using the advanced setting, Lens Blur mode; for initial settings of the sliders, I start with amount 25-30, radius .3; and on the shadow and highlight tabs, fade amount 24-30, tonal width 12-15, and radius 2-3.



You do if you don't have CS3, I believe. I may be wrong...

Thanks!!!! :)

[Marijn Heuts]

Also, do not forget to change the bit mode under "Image> Mode" to 8 bit, or you will not be able to save the image as a JPG file.

[Grace Scalzo]

Thank you Fabs, very clear and helpful. You saved me a couple steps.

[Fabs Forns]

Also, do not forget to change the bit mode under "Image> Mode" to 8 bit, or you will not be able to save the image as a JPG file.

I believe Save for Web handles that in CS.

Thanks!!!

[Robert O'Toole]

The best advice I can give is to implement this and all other commands and adjustments needed in preparing images for the web in an action or droplet. Its easy and takes 5 minutes at the most.

Robert

[Robert Amoruso]

Good information.

[Arthur Morris]

The best advice I can give is to implement this and all other commands and adjustments needed in preparing images for the web in an action or droplet. Its easy and takes 5 minutes at the most. Robert
Over the years, most folks have been amazed by the quality of my J-PEGS; they looked great for years while coming in under 50kbs. And it takes me two seconds to "prepare" them from an optimized TIFF file. How can that be? I use an action as Robert mentions above.

I remember struggling to learn how to create an action until some kind soul explained it to me very carefully step by step. Below is an adapted excerpt from both our Digital Basics File and from The Art of Bird Photography II. You can learn more about each of these right here in this Forum: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5598

Here is exactly how to create an action to be used to prepare an image file for BPN. First, open the image in Photoshop CS3. Next, click on the Actions tab that is usually adjacent to the History box tab. Then, click on the Create New Action icon that is located on the bottom of the window just to the left of the Garbage Can icon. The New Action Window will open. First, type a name for your action, perhaps “BPN j-pegs” into the Name: box. Then arbitrarily choose and check a function key that will be used to initiate the action; I use F2. Lastly, as a reminder, type the function key at the end of the name of the action. If you have chosen F2 for your BPN j-pegs action, the text in the Name Box should read “Slide Show j-pegs F2. ” Then click Record. (When you do this, the Begin Recording icon at the bottom of the window turns red indicating that the operations that you perform will be recorded as part of the action.)

You are now ready to begin recording the various steps in your action. We will consider a 16-bit image Tiff file with layers as our starting point. First, click on Layers/Flatten Image, then on Image/Mode/8-bit. Then click on Image/Image Size and change the resolution to 96 pixels per inch. After making sure that that the Resample Image box is 800 in the Width box and 800 in the height box. This will assure that both your horizontals and your verticals will be 800 pixels on the longest side. Then click on Image/Mode/Convert to Profile and select sRGB from the drop-down menu if it does not appear in the Destination Space Profile box. ((Note: with some master files all of the above operations may not be needed, but it does no harm to have them included in the action in these cases.)

Next we sharpen the image. With 800 pixel images to be used for the web we do two rounds of sharpening. The first round is at 300/.3/1.This is followed by another round at 100/.2/0. These generic settings usually do a great job with digital images; some scanned film images may require an additional round or two of sharpening after the fact. (If you have lots of scanned film images you may wish to create a separate action for those images with higher sharpening settings.) While it is true that a given image may look somewhat better with a bit more sharpening, the amount of time saved by using an action is considerable; I have almost never had an image that looked over-sharpened using the settings above.

Now click File/Save For Web and Devices. Make sure that JPEG is selected in the box below the word Settings. Click on the tiny right-pointing arrow above the word Optimized near the upper right corner of the Save for Web window and then click on Optimize to File Size. Enter the number 145 in the Desired File Size box, click OK, and then click Save. In the Save As Optimized box, make sure that you click through to the desired location and folder and that “Images Only” appears in the Save As Type box.

Next, click File/Close. A box should open and ask, “Save Changes to original file?” Click no as you do not want to save the changes to your master file as it would be destroyed... Lastly, you will need to click on the square to the left of the red circle on the bottom of the Actions window. This stops the recording of your steps and saves the action. Be sure to remember to end the recording or you will have to begin the whole process anew! (Been there, done that!) Now, when you have a finished master file that has already been named and saved, you can simply hit the f2 key and the processed file will be saved in your Web 800 j-pegs folder in a few seconds!

[Patti Edens]

Help! This action sounds like a great idea and could save me a bunch of time, but I'm having a problem making it. I can't see where to put the 800 x 800 in order to make the photo a max of 800 on the longest side.:confused:



Over the years, ...Here is exactly how to create an action to be used to prepare an image file for BPN.
...
I was okay to this step and this step worked just fine:



Then click on Image/Image Size and change the resolution to 96 pixels per inch.


But, the next part, ...



After making sure that that the Resample Image box is 800 in the Width box and 800 in the height box. This will assure that both your horizontals and your verticals will be 800 pixels on the longest side.

...does not make sense based on what I'm seeing. In the Image/Image size window, the Resample Image box is only a drop down to select if you want bicubic sharpener, etc.

And you can't make the change up above in the width and height box in the Image/Image Size box. You have to turn off the command to main maintain aspect ratio and then you will be creating a square.

What am I missing?

Thanks much,
Patti

[Arthur Morris]

I may have screwed up. After switching to 96 dpi go to File/Automate/Fit Image and type 800 into each box, hit OK, and continue.

later and love, artie

[Patti Edens]

Awesome! Thanks for the incredibly Quick response.

BTW, I have The Art of Bird Photography II (I got one of the first ones you sent out) and I absolutely love it. What I like best is that it is on CD and I can search it easily.I originally thought that I wouldn't like the CD format as much as I've enjoyed your books, but I found that it is great! Thanks for all your help. p

[Jack Faller]

CS3 allows conversion to sRGB by checking a box within the 'File/Save for Web' Window;
so one can save some steps in Artie's [Image size, Fit Image, Sharpen, and Save for Web sequence.]
Note that it is important to also check the ICC profile box to include the profile as some software
(e.g. Photoshop) may think the file has an Adobe RGB profile, which gives some funky colors.

In CS3 the 'Save for Web' process produces a JPEG with 72 pixels per inch resolution even if the master was previously
converted to 96 pixels per inch.

Two questions
1) Art of Bird Photography II recommends leaving resampling UNCHECKED in the Image size resolution change.
This was not mentioned in the sequence above. Which is the best way to set resampling?

2) When using CS3 should the resolution change be done first with Image size or just let 'Save for Web' do it?
If so, should I use 72 ppi or 96ppi?

Thanks, Jack

[Myer Bornstein]

Artie
I tried this with PS 4 and could not find all the steps. What is changed or what am I missing in PS4
Regards
Myer

[Robert Amoruso]

Artie
I tried this with PS 4 and could not find all the steps. What is changed or what am I missing in PS4
Regards
Myer

Myer,

I am sending you an email on this. The procedure should work in PS4 though there might be changes. I would need to look into it.

[Joan Chasan]

how do you get to correct file size in elements? can't find where to do it.

[Allen Hirsch]

how do you get to correct file size in elements? can't find where to do it.


...or in Lightroom?

[Myer Bornstein]

In Lightroom go to Export and create the JPEG there by inserting your criteria
CTL-Shft-E

[WIlliam Maroldo]

One thing that I see often is the idea that ppi matters; it does not!! Pixel dimensions are all that is needed;1024 pixels or less horizontal, 800 pixels or less vertical. Degree of jpeg compression is used to bring file size down to 200kb. If the degree of compression has a visible negative effect on image quality, the only choice is reduce the dimensions of the image, and then apply the compression. regards~Bill

[Jon Saperia]

I am sorry if this has been covered elsewhere. For some reason, I have always had difficulty getting good looking jpegs when resizing them using PS. I wonder if it is time for an update to the instructions. Like most on this forum, I am using PS CC now and some of the menus have moved around. They do have a "legacy" "Export for Web" but the result is terrible. I can get slightly better results with the "Save As" feature in Photo Mechanic, but when I enter 1024 as the horizontal dimensions it still looks kinds of crappy. Is there a new set of instructions for the new version of CC? Thanks

[Jon Saperia]

Here is an update to my post. I tried several different products PS CC, LR Classic, and PhotoMechanic. All of which gave nearly identical results when producing JPEGs from the same .psd file. Nothing I
tried with a 1024 max dimension size produced a result I felt was good enough to post. At 1400, the results were borderline OK without limiting file size, when I did, the result was not OK. I also tried with sharpening options and they produced a bad result. So.... this 600k restriction has been in place for a long time. Is it time to reassess the size of the limitation?


I am sorry if this has been covered elsewhere. For some reason, I have always had difficulty getting good looking jpegs when resizing them using PS. I wonder if it is time for an update to the instructions. Like most on this forum, I am using PS CC now and some of the menus have moved around. They do have a "legacy" "Export for Web" but the result is terrible. I can get slightly better results with the "Save As" feature in Photo Mechanic, but when I enter 1024 as the horizontal dimensions it still looks kinds of crappy. Is there a new set of instructions for the new version of CC? Thanks