Image editing software

[Eric]

I'm no Photoshop guru. I barely know how to resize and crop images, never mind doing all those fancy layers and whatnot. My favorite image viewer is an old version of ACDSee, and I do most of my image manipulation in IrfanView.

In every image editing package I have tried, when you want to resize an image you have to specify either the desired target dimensions (e.g. 1024 pixels x 768 pixels) or a desired percent reduction (e.g. 25%). But when I upload images to my HawaiiStories.com blog , the system doesn't care how many pixels the image is, it cares how big the file is in KB. I usually end up resizing each image several times by trial and error, so as to get my resized images as close to the upload filesize limit as possible.

Are there any image editing programs out there that allow you to specify a desired target filesize (e.g. 256 KB) when you resize your images?

[kimo55]

Re: Image editing software

go to versiontracker or tucows and type in image editing and get freeware or shareware... prolly see a few you can try to do this. both windoze and mac is available at these two sources.

[pzarquon]

Re: Image editing software

A lot of image editing programs, in the save process (usually somewhere in the file save dialog box), will allow you to specify a level of compression/quality, and include a dynamically updated preview and an estimate of the file size. It's important to note that often times, the image compression/quality is a larger determiner of final file size than basic image pixel dimensions.

Instead of uploading within your HawaiiStories WordPress blog, you could also get a HawaiiStories Gallery setup, which has much more generous limits.

[shaveice]

Re: Image editing software

good suggestion pzarquon, but after logging on, i don't see any way of creating an album or uploading images to it. can you provide a link to the page that has these features?

thanks!

[pzarquon]

Re: Image editing software

Sorry, shaveice, for the confusion! You have to be a HawaiiStories member to have a Gallery account, thus my suggestion for Eric (who blogs there). If you're looking for photo hosting, we've discussed a few online services recently.

As for the original query about target filesizes, of course I know Photoshop (and I'd imagine Photoshop Elements) lets you preview image quality and saved file size, but that's not exactly a free or nearly-free option. Does anyone know if Picasa has such a feature?

[Konaguy]

Re: Image editing software

I swear by http://www.irfanview.com/ Irfanview. It is free and does resize pictures.

[pzarquon]

Re: Image editing software

Eric mentioned he uses Irfanview quite a bit in his initial post. The specific technical challenge he's trying to address, though, is knowing what size the saved image will be -- preferably dynamically updated prior to saving based on the image's dimensions and compression settings.

Take a look at how Photoshop does it. You can tweak various settings, and see how it affects both how the image looks and how large the file size is. I'm sure other image editors do something like this, though.

[Konaguy]

Re: Image editing software

ooops..I missed that critical part of the post

[Pomai]

Re: Image editing software: Target File Size

In Photoshop CS, go to:

File > Save for Web... >

This dialog box will pop up.*
*Same link by Pzarquon.

To the right of the Settings: [Unnamed] drop down menu button is an arrow button pointing right. Click that and you will have more save options. Select Optimize to File Size.. > Desired File Size ____ k

Enter in your desired file size and it will reduce it specifically to that. Leave the other two boxes "current settings" and "current slice" as is. Finish the save process and that's it. Easy.

This will take the guesswork out of arbitrarily entering image size figures to attain a given file size.

If you're on a Mac, I'd also recommend Lemke's Graphic Converter , which can also specify file size conversions (see screen shot at link). It's cheap (shareware) and very capable. We used to use G.C. alot in OS 9 classic.

Hope this helps.

[Eric]

Re: Image editing software: Target File Size

In Photoshop CS, go to:

File > Save for Web... >

This dialog box will pop up.*
*Same link by Pzarquon.

To the right of the Settings: [Unnamed] drop down menu button is an arrow button pointing right. Click that and you will have more save options. Select Optimize to File Size.. > Desired File Size ____ k

Enter in your desired file size and it will reduce it specifically to that. Leave the other two boxes "current settings" and "current slice" as is. Finish the save process and that's it. Easy.

This will take the guesswork out of arbitrarily entering image size figures to attain a given file size.

If you're on a Mac, I'd also recommend Lemke's Graphic Converter , which can also specify file size conversions (see screen shot at link). It's cheap (shareware) and very capable. We used to use G.C. alot in OS 9 classic.

Hope this helps.

Aha. Exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Only problem is, I don't really want to spend my money on Photoshop if there are cheaper options available, and in this case I'm looking for a Windows solution. Now that I know that this is indeed a possible feature, I will be on the lookout for it as I evaluate other packages.

Thanks!

[Eric]

Re: Image editing software

Sorry, shaveice, for the confusion! You have to be a HawaiiStories member to have a Gallery account, thus my suggestion for Eric (who blogs there).

I will check the Gallery out, Ryan. Thanks for the reminder -- I'd completely forgotten about that particular HawaiiStories feature.

[shaveice]

Re: Image editing software

hey pzarquon, no problem. i assumed you'd have to be a member to get to the gallery. i just signed up from the link you provided and that's when i got confused cuz there were no obviousl links to create a new gallery, etc. now i presume that i couldn't get to first base cuz i didn't also sign up on the home page.

[Eric]

Re: Image editing software: Target File Size

I found that the GIMP also provides filesize estimates. When you save an image as a jpg, you have to make sure that that Show Preview in image window option is checked, and when you do, then it will give you the estimated filesize. And hey... it's free.