Tutorial 02-Save for Web


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A few snippets that might help sort out small file size pixs for sending with emails.

Tutorial Number 2

Save for Web info

The method that I use to resize images is as follows:

For any size or image file format picture you have opened in Photoshop or Elements click on "Image"and select &"Resize" from the drop down menu, next move the curser over "Image Size" on the box that pops out to the right and left click. This opens the "Image Size" box with all the information about the image you are working on.

Normally this will show the dimensions for width and height in "pixels" in the top section, with the size in kilobytes or megabytes above and the two will be linked or "constrained" by the chain symbol to the right of the small boxes.

The Document Size will be shown in the lower box, this is also "constrained", meaning the proportions between width and height will be kept the same no matter what you make the size of the image. It also shows the actual size that the image will be printed at, usually in centimetres but you can change this to inches, mms, etc by clicking on the small box with the up and down arrows. Below this is the resolution of the image, if you have used a digital camera this will almost certainly be 72 pixels/inch but if you are using a scanned image this resolution is determined by the settings you have used on the scanner.
Anything from 300 up to 5400 pixels/inch can be seen in this box and at this stage is not really important.

	Below the Pixel Dimension and Document Size Boxes will be two more small boxes titled "Constrain Proportions" and "Resample Image'' which by default have "tick" marks in. Before saving for the web it is best to resize the image by "dragging" the cursor over the pixel width and type in 600, click OK and the image on the screen will suddenly shrink. This confirms that the file is now dramatically smaller and this should be treated as the first stage in the procedure.

	Now the clever bit in Photoshop, click on "File" from the top bar and select 'Save for Web" from the drop down box. After a few seconds, depending on the speed of your computer, a new screen will appear with two boxes (Elements) or up to four boxes (Photoshops 4 upwards) and these will show the original image on the left with an "Optimised" version to the right. In the settings box click on "JPEG medium" and watch how the size of the image file is reduced. I would suggest you use this as the basic setting but play around with the Quality settings just to see how it works. 600 pixels wide is a general purpose size for emails because all the image should show on the monitor even if the receiver has a small screen. You can of course make the images even smaller by setting the pixel width to 200, 400 or whatever you feel is suitable. The size of the file is shown at the bottom left corner of each box, with an estimate of how quickly it will download. To save this just click OK and I would suggest you save the image in a new folder that you can call "Web Images" and also add the name "web" to the end of the file name title. This will mean you can find the images quickly when you start composing your email messages.

	Hope these guidelines are helpful, feedback at the meeting or by email would be appreciated. Good luck Cliff