ALP Tutorial: Would you like to resize that?

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!

1. Go to Image
2. Down to Image Size
3. 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.