Crop, Resize, and Make Your Digital Pictures Web Ready with Abobe Photoshop

Digital Cameras have really changed the way people record and share their photographs. Today, we'll talk about how to make pictures from your digital camera web or email ready using Adobe Photoshop.We'll crop an image, resize it, and save it in a format optimized for the web and email.

An image from a camera can be quite large, however, making it less than ideal to email or post to a web site. For example, the picture I used in this tutorial is 792 kilobyte's, or about 8/10th of a megabyte, and takes up 2288 x 1712 pixels. With an average computer screen displaying only 1024 x 768, someone opening this image as-is would have to scroll to see the whole image.

For this tutorial,. I'm using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 running on a Mac with OS 10. If you have another version of Photoshop or run a system with windows, don't worry…the basics will be pretty much the same, so this should still be a useful tutorial for you.

Now, let's get started. First, open the file in Photoshop.

First, we'll crop the image to frame it more effectively. In this image, I want to cut out as much of extraneous items in the image, but keep the main subject.

To do this, select what is called the "rectangular marquee tool", which is the upper left of the tool palette, and looks like a rectangle with a dotted border.

Now, click and hold the mouse button down and select the area of the photograph you'd like to keep. When you release the mouse button, a rectangle with dotted lines will appear around your selection.

Next, to go the "image" menu and select "crop". The image is reduced to just your selection.

Now, we'll resize the image to make it easier to email or display in a web page. Go to the "image" menu again and select "image size". Make sure that "constrain proportions" is checked, as this will maintain the ratio of width and height in your image as you resize it.

Look at the numbers in the height and width boxes in the window. Change the larger of the two to a much smaller number, such as 600 pixels. Notice that the other number automatically changes because we checked off "constrain proportions".

The image now looks much smaller on the screen. You'll notice that the image is being displayed at only one third it's actual size. To show the image at it's true size, double click on the "Zoom Tool" in the lower right of the tool palette, which looks like a magnifying glass.

Next, we'll save the image in a format that is ideal for posting to the web or emailing.

In the "File" menu, select "Save for Web". The "save for web" window appears. Under the settings to the right of your image, select JPEG and maximum. Notice at the bottom of the window that it shows you the type of image you selected, the file size of the new image, and approximately how long it would take to download the image on a 28.8 modem. Click the "Save" button, name your image, and click save again.

You now have an image that is cropped to look better, and is ready to email or post to the web at about 10% of the original file size.