Step 1

Transfer the image from scanner or digital camera. You should have something like the image on the left. It is far too large in both resolution (1168X1760) and file size (523KB) to upload to the Web. We need to perform some simple (and quick) tasks to 'optimise' this image.

Step 2 - Cropping

The first operation is to 'crop' this image; this removes the excess around the wanted image.

To 'crop' an image we need to use the crop tool:

Once you have selected the crop tool you need to expand the crop tool over the image and then hit the 'crop' button.

Step 3 - Scaling

Here you can see the result of cropping the image. Now we need to 'Scale' the image so that it will fit on our Webpage.

>Right Click The Image

>Go to IMAGE

>Go to SCALE IMAGE

The dialogue as shown here will appear.

In the New Width box enter 200 (for portrait or 300 for landscape)

Tab through to the next box, this should autocomplete with a suitable (Constrained) value, then click OK.

Step 4 - Exporting & Saving

We are now ready to save our image, ready for uploading.

>Right Click the image

>Go to FILE

>Go to SAVE AS

>Choose the location (C:\\mydocuments\myimages\house-final\) for example.

>Click OK

You should now see something like the image below; you need to slide the Quality slider to around 0.70-0.80 while keeping an 'eye' on the Export Preview pane ensuring the image does not get 'blocky'.

Next, slide the smoothing tool up to around 0.1 this very slightly blurs the image, it sounds bad, but this helps the JPEG file size and is not noticeable to most users.

Ensure Optimize and Progressive are selected.

Hit OK - The image is now ready for uploading!