Some Basic Image Editing Tips

Some Basic Image Editing Tips

• Image Resizing: Many digital cameras produce images which are 1600x1200 pixels in size. A pixel (picture element) can be thought of as a coloured dot (imagine the dots that make up a picture in a newspaper) so an image this size will contain 1600x1200=1,920,000 dots. That typically produces a file which is nearly 500kb (kilobytes) in size which is too big to be uploaded or displayed efficiently. Our site will not accept files larger in kilobytes that the limit displayed in the rules above.
• Image Cropping: Another technique which can be used to make the picture smaller or to remove unnecessary edge detail is 'cropping'. This allows you to select a rectangular area of your photograph and remove all the information outside it.
• Image Compression: Most digital cameras save their results as .JPG files. This format provides a mechanism for 'compressing' the files to save disk space. The compression rate is adjustable but unfortunately higher compression rates (and therefore smaller files) have a negative impact on the picture quality. To make life still more complicated, images with little detail compress much more efficiently, so a picture of a plain white wall will compress very well, the same size picture of a wall covered with a complex patterned wallpaper will compress less well and produce a much larger file. However, if you save (or export) your file using a compression ratio of about 25% (in conjunction with resizing the image as described above) you will produce an image which still looks good but will also upload and display quickly.