Resize photos for web or email

What’s the best way to resize photos for web use, email or on-screen viewing? In our quick guide we show you the best method to follow.

Current cameras deliver much higher resolution images than you need for sending as email attachments or for posting online.

Reducing the physical size and increasing the compression ratio of JPEGs results in files with much smaller data sizes. All good photo-editing programs have tools for doing this, while retaining decent image quality.

For on-screen viewing, it’s best to find out the native resolution of the computer monitor, TV, tablet, mobile phone or other device on which you want to display the photos.

The aspect ratio will probably be different to that of your camera, so you may also need to crop the images to fill the screen and avoid black bars at the edges.

1 Reduce the size
In Photoshop Elements’ Image Size window, enter a new width or height in Pixel Dimensions. Tick the Resample Image box then choose the Bicubic Sharper method to retain sharpness.

2 Compression
Choose a moderate JPEG compression setting. After reducing the dimensions of this detailed image to 800×531 pixels, even the high quality setting generates a manageable 207k file.

3 Cropping
The Crop tool has some handy preset values for popular sizes of photo prints. There’s also a 16×9 preset, which works well for cropping images for widescreen TVs and computer monitors.

4 Upscaling
For large-format printing, enter the document dimensions in the Image Size dialog box. Select the required print resolution and use the Bicubic Smoother resampling method.