Easily Shrink the Size of a Digital Photo Using IrfanView
Shrinking a digital photo involves reducing its dimensions and/or resolution. This can be accomplished quite easily by using IrfanView, the leading freeware image editor.
On Unix/Linux platforms, use the free software image manipulation utilities from ImageMagick.
Contents
Steps
- Download and install IrfanView.
- Run IrfanView. Click File > Open.
- Browse to the photo you wish to shrink.
- Left-click the name of the photo to select it.
- Click the Open button. The photo will appear in the IrfanView window.
- To reduce the dimensions of the photo, click Image > Resize/Resample.
- Select the options you prefer and click OK.
- To reduce the quality of a .JPG image without changing its dimensions, click File > Save As and select JPG - JPEG Files from the drop-down list. Click the Options button and use the slide bar to select a lower image quality. This will reduce the disk space used by the photo.
- After altering the image, click File > Save As and select a new file name. Click the Save button to create the new image.
Tips
- Images over 500 pixels wide will be truncated in wikiHow, thumbs next to text should be 250 pixels wide
- If you reduce the quality of an image too drastically, simply re-open the original image and try again. This time, save it at a higher quality. You may have to experiment a bit to find an acceptable compromise.
- If you use a type of digital camera that uses a proprietary picture format, such as RAW or NEF, you will need the add-ins file for IrfanView.
Warnings
- IrfanView is free for "non-commercial use only."
- IrfanView is not available for Macs.
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