Reducing The Resolution Of A Photo/Scan

In searching and testing different methods for reducing the resolution of a scanned image or a photo to comply with the 100kb maximum for an image post, I have come across an excellent add-on for Windows XP users.

I have not tested this on Vista (it may already be included by default). Microsoft makes what they term "Power Toys" for Windows XP. One of them is called "Image Resizer". It is a simple program that, when installed, is integrated into the Windows right click menu. When you right click on an image you get an option to Resize Pictures.

Then when you click it, it gives you a few preset options (size reductions to fit the various computer display resolutions: VGA, XGA, etc..). Each one being less than 100kb in size.

The best thing about this add-on is that it reduces the photo down to the 'same' size regardless of what the original size/resolution was.

It will then take the image, reduce it and place the smaller image in the same folder with the same name, but with the size also included at the end of the image name (i.e. ImageA.jpg would turn into ImageA(small).jpg). In addition, the program is only 500k in size and doesn't add any processes nor additional Program folders and will not clutter up your Start Menu or Desktop!

You can select individual photos or convert many at the same time.

It can be downloaded from Microsoft for free here (5th from the bottom):
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...wertoys.mspx

Hope this helps!

I just tried the image resizer. It works great. Thanks stamporator. With that I won't have to scan again when I exceed 100 kb.

Thanks 'timbres667'. A am now looking at all the other MS Powertoys that they provide like:

<b>Color Control Panel Applet</b>
<i>Professional-level photographers and designers know that getting consistent, accurate color from file to screen to print and beyond is a requirement for great results. This new tool helps you manage Windows color settings in one place.</i>

This may be helpful in maintaing the real colour of the stamp to the scanned image.

Nice one stamporator,
I shall use it, but it doesn't list in my ACDSee drop down box
so I have to open the shell.
Works nicely though, a "medium" reduction usually
gives me a scan around 75Kb.
The newly generated file has "medium" in the file name
so I can delete all these ata later date.

Of course, there are ways around the limit on file size. You can use one of the free image hosting sites like Photobucket, for example. I recently posted this scan:



which was scanned at 1200 dpi and runs to 5.3 MB on my system, but which fits here perfectly well, without shrinking.

I agree with you Tony. I've been using Photobucket for about 2 years and it works great.

My only thought on this is that uploading the photos to this site keeps everything here, when hosting sites, and users, and allowed capacities change through time.

It would be a bit easier to just host my images offsite rather than resize them all, but I do it in one step through Irfanview, setting the largest side to 600, and the DPI to 72. That almost always results in a file between 75 and 100KB in size.

I do like looking at the 5MB scans, though...

paint.net will let you resize and image to a specific size, specific file size, etc..
If I need to reduce an image, I can say shrink this to 100kb or 1 inch by 1 inch.

Irfanview shares that functionality, too, if you want to automate the process...