Frequently Asked Questions:

What size images should I post? How do I resize them?

I still get a lot of questions about size of images to post and how to resize and optimize them, so I thought I would throw up this post for the sake of clarity.

ProPhoto is designed for images that are 900 pixels by 600 pixels, vertical or horizontal. You can post images smaller than that, but you can not post images WIDER than 900px. Some people (Mark Ridout comes to mind) post a lot of pictures that are 900px wide and MUCH taller than 600px, but they still don’t go any wider than 900 pixels as this will break the layout of the blog. (By the way, I don’t personally recommend using images bigger than 900px tall because of page load speed and because most monitors are big enough to see all of the image at once).

All image editing programs (most photographers use Photoshop or Lightroom or Aperture) allow you to resize images. If you’re interested in how I get images ready to post to the blog using Photoshop, read on:

First, I resize it to 900px by 600px by going to “Image” => “Image Size…” (Note, if you’re using a PC, things might look a bit different for you.)

Then I set the wider dimension to 900 and click OK. As long as you leave “constrain proportions” checked the other dimension will take care of itself:

Once I’m done resizing, I usually add a bit of sharpening–I use Kubota’s Magic Sharp action–but you can sharpen with whatever action you like, or use a built-in sharpening filter from Photoshop, or don’t sharpen at all, it’s up to you…

Finally, I optimize it for the web by shrinking the file size (not the dimensions–how big the file is in terms of memory used to store it and download it) as much as I can without sacrificing too much quality. I do this by going to “File” => “Save for Web and Devices…”

And then making sure that “JPEG” is selected as file type, and turning down the quality to around 80. I keep my eye on the file size in the lower left corner and watch how the quality looks on the “optimized” tab preview. I’m trying to get the file size as small as possible (this will help your blog load fast) without sacrificing image quality too much.

(By the way, that is my bald 8 month-old daughter on the left of that picture.) Then, I click save, and I’m ready to upload to the blog.

If you know your way around Photoshop a bit, you may want to create a couple of actions that automates all of this for you–this can save a lot of time.

Questions? Instead of emailing for support, leave a comment below so everyone can benefit from any clarification.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 and is filed under Frequently Asked Questions, Posting. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

14 Responses to “What size images should I post? How do I resize them?”

  1. On May 28th, 2008 at 4:26 pm Dustin Francis said:

    Just wanted to say that in my df Sharpen action set that is a free download on my BLOG, there is an action called BLOG Sharpen and BLOG Sharpen 900, that everyone loves. The sharpening is a little more natural looking than KPD Magic Sharp. Check out all the feedback on OSP to see what I’m talking about. The nice thing about BLOG Sharpen 900, is it will resize and sharpen for you with the click of a button. Check it out!

  2. On May 29th, 2008 at 8:37 am Jared said:

    @Dustin Francis: Cool! That’s really helpful, Dustin. Everybody check out Dustin’s actions, ok?

  3. On May 30th, 2008 at 12:31 pm Max said:

    If you are creating actions to resize your image, I suggest you user Fit Image menu in Photoshop. Go to File->Automate->Fit Image. This would insure that your images are limited to 900px no matter the orientation.

    Max.

  4. On May 31st, 2008 at 12:45 pm Lisa Carpenter said:

    Are we supposed to change the default image size in the admin area of WP? Or is the template already designed for that? I imported images from my old blog and some look good and some are big and look out of focus, so I was wondering if I should change settings in WP.

  5. On June 2nd, 2008 at 10:32 am Jared said:

    @Lisa Carpenter: you shouldn’t have to set anything. they should import the same as they were on the old blog, unless there was something funky about your old blog.

    what’s your prophoto blog address so i can try to see the problem?

  6. On June 10th, 2008 at 11:03 pm Charise said:

    Im still having some issues with size. I didnt have this issue until I upgraded to the latest version of WP. So Im thinking its a WP issue. never the less, I am resizing to 900px on the widest side, when I post to the blog I choose to post at full size but its still not posting at 900px, its small and pixelated. HELP! :)

  7. On June 11th, 2008 at 6:52 am Jared said:

    @Charise: is it this problem?

  8. On June 24th, 2008 at 10:26 pm Sinead said:

    Hi Jared,

    I’m trying to upload a vertical image to my studio sinead blog and I keep getting this message:

    The uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize directive in php.ini.

    What does this mean? How do I fix it? My image is correctly sized, but I get this message no matter how small I make it.

    Thanks for your help!

  9. On June 25th, 2008 at 7:21 am Jared said:

    @Sinead: do you get this error when uploading a horizontal image?

    the error you’re getting has to do with a webhost configuration, not with WordPress or ProPhoto, but you shouldn’t be getting it! What is the filesize in Kb that you are trying to upload?

    If this persists, you should probably call your web host technical support.

  10. On June 25th, 2008 at 3:31 pm Sinead said:

    Hi Jared,

    I just tried to upload a horizontal image that I posted successfully a few days ago. I got the same error message! :(
    The vertical image was 288×432 @ 72 ppi. 57.8kb
    I am in the process of installing a new Bludomain site and we did increase the size of the file that I’m able to upload to my server. Could this have anything to do with it? I haven’t broken my blog, have I? I hope not; I love it too much!

  11. On June 25th, 2008 at 4:57 pm Jared said:

    @Sinead: hmmmm…. i’d tell you to call your webhost but it’s Bludomain, so you’ll probably have to wait a long time to get any kind of help, if at all.

    i’m sending you an email.

  12. On June 25th, 2008 at 7:15 pm Sinead said:

    Thanks, Jared!
    BTW: just so you know, I’m not hosted at Bludomain. They did my site, but I host it elsewhere.

  13. On July 15th, 2008 at 7:20 am Jes said:

    My blog loads reallllllly slow so I imagine that my images are too big (I already fixed my background image). I have 4×6 sized images. My Horizontals are 150dpi at 900×600. My verticals are 117dpi at 468×702 (so that they’ll fit on the page). I have no idea how I would save the images at an 80 quality in Save For Web and have them anywhere near being only 100-200K. Mine are about 1.5 MB. Help?

  14. On July 15th, 2008 at 1:39 pm Jared said:

    @Jes: i’m confused. i looked at your blog and your images seemed to be well sized. i’m not sure which ones are 1.5mb. with a 900×600 image saved as JPG through photoshop, there should be no problem getting them in the 100-200k range.

    DPI doesn’t matter on the web at all, only the pixel dimensions.

    i’m not sure what the problem is - your images look a little on the large side, but only about 10-15%. who is your webhost? you may be getting poor performance from their servers as well.

    also, you do have a lot of images loading per page, you might think about posting fewer images, or further decreasing the number of posts on the front page.

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