Frequently Asked Questions

How to I resize lots of photos at once?

There is a bulk version of web resizer that helps you quickly resize lots of images.

Why do I need to resize my pictures?

The pictures that come out of a digital camera are too big for use on the web.

Websites often have two requirements for uploaded pictures: a maximum height and width and a maximum file size. Webresizer helps you with both of these by displaying the dimensions of your picture and the file size. You can adjust the image size and the quality setting to ensure that the resulting picture meets your requirements.

How does the image quality setting affect file size?

The image quality setting of your JPEG photos has a large effect on the file size, with reductions of 50% or more possible with the correct setting.

A low setting for image quality will give a smaller file size.

A high setting of image quality will give a large file size.

The trade off is that JPEG throws away some of the information in your photo and, if image quality is reduced too far, your photo will start to look degraded. In general, an image quality of 70-80 will give a good reduction in file size for most images.

Webresizer can display your photos at various quality settings so you can choose the best balance of quality and file size. Try selecting Compare Image Sizes to quickly see the file size and image quality setting that work best for your image.

Can I make my pictures bigger?

Making a picture bigger will make it blurry. Unfortunately, software you see on TV shows that can zoom in on a small part of a photo and turn it into a sharp, detailed image is mostly make-believe. You can increase the size of your picture a little and it will still look ok but a large increase in size will deteriorate the image. If you want a larger picture, upload the original file that came from your digital camera and resize it down.

How do I crop a photo?

Clicking on the 'Crop image' link will place a marching ants crop-box over your picture.

To reposition or resize the crop-box hold down the left mouse key and move your mouse to position the crop-box. You can also use the arrow keys on the keyboard to nudge the crop-box position.

Alternatively you can make the crop-box an exact size by typing the width and height.

If you want a perfectly square crop, hold down the shift key while resizing the crop box with the mouse.

Click 'Apply Changes' when you are happy with the selected crop area.

How to convert a photo to black and white

Check the 'Monochrome' box and click 'Apply Changes'.

The 'Tint' setting gives a nice effect on monochrome images - try selecting brown and a value of 30 for a sepia effect.

What size should I use if I want to print my photos?

Webresizer was written to reduce the size of your pictures so they are suitable for use on the internet.

When printing pictures you don't want to reduce the image file size and best results are obtained by using the maximum quality available from your camera.

If you use a photo editing tool before printing, then use the highest image quality setting available when you save the image. See here for a list of our recommended photo editing software.

How do I make a picture exactly the size I want?

Select the crop tool by clicking on the 'Crop image' link and type in the height and width you want (e.g. 300x200).

When the crop-box appears, move it around by holding the left mouse button down and dragging until the crop-box is in the correct position.

When you are happy, click on the 'Apply Changes' button to crop your photo to the exact size.

Why did the file size of my picture get bigger?

This can happen if you upload an image that's already been optimized either by Webresizer or another program. If your image has already been optimised, then the default setting of Image Quality = 80 may be too high and may actually make the size bigger! Simply lower the value of Image Quality and click 'Apply Changes'.

How big should I make pictures for email?

About 400-600 pixels wide and/or high is a good size for email. This is large enough to properly view the image, yet has a small enough file size so that it doesn't take too long to download and view. Any bigger than this and it may be too large to fit on the screen without scrolling the page.

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