Resizing your images is often a crucial part of creating a blog post.  In this article, I will be talking about how to reduce your file size rather than controlling the actual dimensions of the image you put into your post (however, this tutorial will also help with ensuring you do not go over our recommended image width as well).

You might ask yourself why reducing the file size is advantageous. Some images are larger than others and, as a result, they can slow down the load time on your blog or website. To prevent this, you should consider keeping your image file size to under 75kb. Of course, there are fancy programs like Photoshop that can do this for you but there are also many free, easy-to-use alternatives that can reduce your image size without affecting how it looks. In this tutorial, I will use Picnik as my example but there are several (like Paint.net) that are perfectly acceptable.

On the Picnik (www.picnik.com) site, the first thing you will likely see is a screen like the image below. Click on the “Get Started Now” button.

On the next screen, you will see a button labeled “Upload a Video.” You will also see that you have the option to register. You do not need to register in order to edit images but feel free to do so if you want to. Click on the “Upload an Image” button.

Next, you should see your image. You will notice that, on the page, there are several tabs (”Home” “Library” “Edit” “Create” and “Share & Save”). By default, you should be on the “Edit” tab. At this point, you will have two options for editing your image.

Option 1 - While on the “Edit” tab, click on the “Resize” button. Since we require that images are no larger than 500px wide, please replace whatever numbers are in that first box (see below) with 500. Make sure that the “Keep Proportions” box is checked and hit “OK.”  More often than not, this will be enough to ensure that your image is smaller than 75kb.

When you are done, hit the “Save & Share” tab. Once there, I want you to look for two things:

• Ensure that the image width is “500″ or less
• Check the file size to make sure it is less than 75kb. If it isn’t, you will need to make the image’s width smaller until the file size is under 75kb.

Option 2 - Click on the “Save & Share” tab. There, you will see a place to put 500px as your desired with. The advantage of doing it this way is that you will instantly see the file size (see image below). If it is more than 75kb, you can adjust the width until the file size is small enough.

When you are satisfied after using either method, hit the “Save Photo” button. You will be prompted to either replace the image or choose a new location to save the file. This decision is entirely up to you. I always replace the file because I don’t want to run the risk of accidentally using the image that hasn’t been resized.

images: Jeanne Dupuis/Tyra Banks Show

Blogging Tips file size, image width, images, Picnik