Would you like to resize that?
Yes, yes you would! And why would you want to resize it? Oh, any number of reasons. Optimization, fitting a specific pre-determined space…etc. Oh! And saving you money!
Bigger is not always better. Logo files are normally provided by designers in large format, sometimes with a resized file — this ensures you have top quality files on hand for your needs, whether it’s websites, printing, signage, social media, and so on. But, the files provided for your logo from your designer won’t always fit perfectly for every single application…and let’s face it, if designers provided files like that, they’d be spending all day prepping them for you! So, we thought that it might be handy to know how to resize files on your own — save you time, $$, and you’ll become more adept at managing your own branding — fabulous all around, darling!
Uploading the wrong size files will take up space, it’ll make your website lag, or people won’t see things the way you’re hoping that they’ll see them. Or, you might even experience some sort of file distortion or icky compression — not good or pretty! We want to help you with that, so we’re going to give you a quick tutorial on resizing in Photoshop…and for those of you without PS access, PicMonkey! Something for everyone!
Photoshop
Let’s start with Adobe Photoshop — not affiliated with Adobe in any way, by the way — just our go-to for making beautiful things for you!
Go ahead and open your image to watermark!
- Go to Image
- Down to Image Size
- The window that opens will give you some options, I typically resize in pixels so 800 x 800 (arbitrary numbers for the purpose of this tutorial), it’ll also adjust one side depending what you need. As long as you keep it fixed, so if you need it small vertically or horizontally. Locking the proportions can be done by making sure that little link icon is clicked.
This is where you decide what size, which will depend on where you’re putting your image. Pretty easy peasy for Photoshop.
Just another tidbit of info for you — if you’re saving a resized file for website/social media go to EXPORT under file and “save to web” — this’ll keep things nice and clean from web sharing.
PicMonkey
Now, let’s talk about the other option, PicMonkey. We’re also not affiliated with PicMonkey in any way — we simply find that among browser-based editing programs, it’s easily accessible and it’s easy to learn. These are two very important things business owners on the go that don’t have time to deal with learning Photoshop, which can be really daunting.
So step 1, if you’re using PicMonkey, sign up and create an account. If you plan to make resizing, or any image editing a habit, you’ll be happy to have an account so that perhaps you can keep some of your projects organized.
Next, this is where we click Edit a photo, then it’ll prompt that create an account, and you’ll end up over here at this screen…
Then, “Open New” and choose where you want to grab the image you want to resize — I’m choosing Computer, since that’s where I have my images.
Alright, we’ve got slider open (it’s the little line/dot that’s blue) you can crop, rotate, sharpen and boom, RESIZE the last one with the cookie cutters.
When you resize, check out what the source wants for best image quality. 800 is a decent size, it’ll load quickly and stay sharp.
After this, you go up by Open new, then SAVE. You have resized and now saved your file for use.
4 thoughts on “ALP Tutorial: Would you like to resize that?”
how do you add the watermark to your photo if you don’t have photoshop or picmonkey
Hi Stephanie!
You’ll need to use a program that supports watermarking! You mentioned not having Photoshop or PicMonkey, but you could also use older versions of Lightroom, or an app called Wordswag. We blogged about how to watermark in all four of the programs!
http://autumnlanewebsites.com/alp-tutorial-watermarking-in-picmonkey-wordswag/
http://autumnlanewebsites.com/alp-tutorial-watermarking-in-photoshop-lightroom/
Alternatively, you could search for a different watermarking program or app and follow the instructions unique to that program!
Beck
Is there a way to size down my logo enough for it to be approximately the size of a business card? I am wanting to use them as tags for my jewelry. However every time I try to scale them down they look extremely rough and pixilated.
Hi Sarah!
Business cards are typically about 1110×685 pixels (3.7×2.283 inches, to account for bleed + trim) so you should be able to enter sizes in to whatever program you’re using. If you’re using something like Photoshop to scale it down, you should be good to go with no quality issues. If you’re using something browser-based, like PicMonkey, it may be the image preview only that is the issue, rather than the actual file. Once you download the file after resizing, I think it should probably be good to go! The other alternative, if you plan for your tags to be actual business card size, would be to upload your full-sized logo to the printer of your choice, and use their browser-based design interface to size the logo and place it onto the card accordingly!
Beck