How can I decrease the resolution of a pic?

[Tim Wash]

Boy I am getting fed up with myself. The available manuals likely have the answer to this question and I do not have the time to read through them all, try and make sense of them, and find the answer. How I wish people would go back to FAQ! Oh well.

Bonehead Newbie here. I have a pic in high def resolution but when I try to post it on a particular site they tell me it is too large a file. I want to be able to decrease the resolution so the file will be smaller.

How do I load a pic into Paint Shop, decrease the resolution, and save the result?

I thank you for any help you can give me.
Tim

[LeviFiction]

I would ask, what are the upload requirements of the site you're trying to upload to. (Pixel dimension, plus file size limit).

And what are the pixel dimensions and file size of the image you're trying to upload? That would give us the best idea of the advice to give.

So, funny thing.

There are three resolutions, okay the last one isn't considered resolution but I consider it...anyway. 1) Physical Resolution (pixel density) 2) Pixel Resolution (total pixels in image) and 3) Compression resolution.

If you're only uploading to another server and it's only going to be seen on the web, not printed, then physical resolution doesn't matter. It's how many pixels are stuffed into a physical inch. But it doesn't change the digital size of an image. An image 800x800 pixels is the same size whether it's 72ppi or 300ppi. As this value only relates to the physical size (how many pixels are printed within one physical inch) when printed.

To change the print resolution of an image open the Image Resize command (Image -> Resize) set the pixel dimensions to percentages at 100 percent.

Set the new print resolution.

Hit OK. The print resolution should be changed.

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Pixel Resolution, is how many pixels are in an image. You can change this by either cropping the image, or using Image Resize to decrease the size of the image in pixels. Cropping completely cuts areas of the image away, resizing attempts to throw away and combine pixels without deleting huge portions of the image. Since each pixel is 24-bits (or 32 if transparency is used) each pixel removed decreases the file size of the image.

To Crop use the crop tool and select the area of the image you want to keep, understanding that anything not inside the crop rectangle will be deleted.

To resize the image to a new pixel dimension use the Image Resize command. And set the new pixel dimensions.

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Finally Compression. Compression, especially with JPEGs, is all about decreasing the amount of data required to make up an image. Some images that are only 100KB on the harddrive, uncompressed are probably closer to 1MB. JPEGs employ a lossy compression. This means it will compress the data, but it'll also look for data to just throw away. So colors that are very similar in nature but can't be distinguished by the human eye will be tossed. Entire areas where the color is exactly the same will be treated as a block rather than a large number of pixels.

So be aware the the higher the compression on a JPEG, the lower the quality of the image.

To change the JPEG compression level go to File -> Save As

In the File dialog there will be an "Options" button near the bottom. Click on that. It will give you options for the file type you're trying to save to. If it's a JPEG file you can change the resolution. 20 is a bit severe for most people, but it offers high levels of compression.

DO NOT SAVE OVER THE ORIGINAL! Cannot stress this enough, if you already save copies great, but never save over the original especially if you're decreasing the image. Once it's gone, it's gone, and if you want to continue editing, or tweaking, all of that data is gone and can't be recreated.

[Tim Wash]

Hi Levi. Thx for the info. If I understand it correctly simply resizing the pic, while keeping the pixel at 100%. OK, I will try it.

I am embarrassed to say I am trying to upload pics to eHarmony. Boy are they a complete pain in my back. They pretty much will not tell me what is happening, but all the pics I post have the bottom cropped off. The 1st just had a bit removed at the bottom. The second pic, a shot of head and shoulders, was cut off below the neck.

I am really only guessing that they remove the bottom if the file is too big. I will follow your advice and see if it helps.

And may I take this opportunity to ask another boneheaded question? I am trying to simply open a canvas and add 2 pics side by side and save the resultant pic. I do this all the time with presentation software and it is very simple. With PaintShop I am unable to find instructions to do this. I understand it provides "layer" functionality but no matter how many I try combine layers into one pic it never works.

Would you be willing to instruct me in this also?

Thank you for your time and help,
Jeff

[Kathy_9]

This video should help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgkYT2kfp8Q

It probably contains more info than what you need but it won't hurt.

[hartpaul]

You could also find out the dimensions they accept, by right clicking an image on the site and selecting properties. That should show you the pixel dimensions you need.
Then it is a matter of setting a crop rectangle to that dimension,making sure you have ticked maintain aspect ratio after you have typed in the dimensions. Then drag the crop rectangle to make it larger and position it . Then make the crop, and resizing the pixel dimensions of this should give the acceptable picture.
Save as and with the Options make sure the compression is set about 10 (for web) . You can then load that picture up and it should be all good.