How to Resize Images & Maintain Original Sharpness
You can resize images and photos using existing software on your Mac or Windows computer. When resizing, however, keep in mind that stretching or skewing will distort your picture and reduce the quality of the image. In addition, making images larger will require your computer to fill in information and add pixels to the image, reducing sharpness. Resize images to be smaller than the original image and maintain the aspect ratio (the width-to-height ratio) to maintain the original image sharpness.
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Instructions
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Mac Preview
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Open the image with the Preview application by clicking the "Preview" icon. Then click "Open" from the "File" menu to open the image you want to resize.
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Click "Tools" and then "Adjust Size."
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Click the box next to the "Scale Proportionally" option to ensure the image retains its aspect ratio. De-select "Resample image" to avoid losing detail when making the image's dimensions smaller.
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Choose a common size from the "Fit into" pop-up menu or enter values for the width or height manually. If you change either or the width or height option, the other value will change to maintain the aspect ratio. Choosing a size from the "Fit into" pop-up menu may produce an image width or height that is smaller than the chosen size. This is a result of the "Scale Proportionally" option and will maintain the original image sharpness and aspect ratio.
Windows Live Photo Gallery
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Click the photo you want to resize. Then click "File," "Resize." A Resize dialog box will appear.
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Select the size you want to resize your image to by clicking the drop-down menu and choosing the desired image size. The "Maximum dimensions" box displays the number of pixels that make up the longest side of your photo. The image sharpness will be maintained by choosing a size smaller than this dimension.
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Click the "Resize and Save" button. The image will be saved in the same location as the original file, renamed with the addition of the new dimensions. For example, if your original image was named "Kebmo" and saved in your Pictures folder, the new image will be renamed "Kebmo (1024x683)" if the new dimensions are 1024 pixels by 683 pixels and will be saved in the Pictures folder.
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Tips & Warnings
To send an image through email, the image size should be less than 2 MB. If it is larger than 2 MB, resize the image to smaller dimensions to create a smaller file size.
References
- Photo Credit Photo of the photographer, taking a photo image by Aleksej Kostin from Fotolia.com
