Resizing your images
Remember digital images should be no more than 1200 pixels high or 1600 pixels wide. So a Portrait orientated picture will be 1200 pixels high maximum and a Landscape orientated picture will be 1600 pixels wide maximum.
Resized digital files of your image should be emailed to slpscomps@gmail.com
Photoshop resizing guide
- Go to the top menu of the screen and click on Image then scroll down to Image Size (or Shortcut Alt+Ctrl+I on a PC).
- Once you see the Image Size box, look for two boxes and some ‘tickable’ items. The top box is headed Pixel Dimensions and the second box is headed Document Size. We are interested in are Resolution in the lower box, and Height and Width in the upper box.
- First of all make sure that the ‘tickable’ boxes are ticked. Then go to the box headed Document Size and double click in the Resolution box and make the number 72 pixels per inch. You will see that the height and width boxes in the Pixel Dimensions box above alter their values.
- Secondly go to the box headed Pixel Dimensions and to the Height and Width boxes. In these enter the values that you need, either 1600 wide or 1200 high. When you do this make sure that the maximum sizes are not exceeded. If they are then adjust the higher figure so that it comes down to the maximum allowed. So that is no more than 1600 wide and no more than 1200 high, they can be smaller but try to get as near as possible to these. One of these figures may be less than the maximum allowed as your picture format (ie panorama) may not fit these dimensions, don’t worry. If your image is 1600 pixels wide but less than 1200 pixels high, don’t try to make it 1200 pixels high as this will distort your image. Conversely, if your image is 1200 pixels high and less than 1600 pixels wide don’t try to make it 1600 pixels wide. Also if your image is a lot less than these dimensions, say 640 pixels x 480 pixels then your projected image will not look it’s best, to say the least!
- At the bottom there is another box that has options for the best ‘look’ of resizing. This is normally left at the default setting of Bicubic for these small size pictures, but feel free to see which you prefer.
- Please note that if you alter the Height and Width in the Pixel Dimensions boxes first then the Resolution box will not alter. Then when you alter the Resolution box the Height and Width boxes will end up being a lot smaller than you wanted and you will end up with a postage stamp sized image on the screen.
- Save your image as a JPG with Maximum quality.
- Check that you have the right size and type of file before you commit it to email or disc, you don’t want all your hard work disqualified for the sake of a check!!
- Sit back, have a cuppa and relax.
Lightroom resizing guide
The easiest way to resize in Lightroom is to Export a copy of your image and save it on your computer so you can email your competition entries.
From File on the Lightroom top menu choose Export which will open a new dialogue box.
In Export Location choose where you want to save this version of your image e.g. desktop
In File Naming rename your file if required
In File Settings choose
Image Format: JPEG
Colour Space: sRGB
In Image Sizing tick the Resize to Fit box
Landscape images – Width 1600, Height 1200, Resolution 72
Portrait images – Height 1200 which will automatically adjust the Width to the correct pixels. Resolution 72
For a video on how to resize images from Karl Taylor, a well known photographer on the internet Click Here
There are also some free resizing programmes available on the internet. Here are some links to some easy to use ones.