Image Resizing

As stated previously, you should keep full sized copies of your originals, but you will need to resize your images for display on the web.  Most treatment photos associated with conservation portfolios are displayed on the web in two sizes: a small thumbnail, that typically ranges from 100-300 pixels, and a larger blowup image that generally ranges from 600-800 pixels. Unless you choose to use an automated image display feature (see Dreamweaver’s Web Photo Album) you’ll have to resize your images to both of these sizes if you elect to display your blowups.

There is a right and a wrong way of resizing images.  In Photoshop, you have the option of changing the print size or the image dimension in pixels– all at once or individually.  The print size changes the “real life” size of your image as well as its resolution.  The pixel dimension tells you how big the image is in pixels, which is important for online images - changing the pixel dimensions is actually known as "resampling".  If you intend to print your images, you will need to keep a resolution of at least 150 ppi (pixels per inch), or 300 ppi if you want high quality images. 

If you are just putting the images on your web portfolio, you need a resolution of only 72 or 96 dpi.  Most computer screens cannot show the difference between a 72 dpi and anything higher than that. If you save your web images with a higher than 72 dpi resolution, you're just taking up extra disk space! To preserve the highest pixel quality, you ideally want to convert your image files to the Photoshop format (.psd) but this is an extra step that is not always necessary unless you intend to print high quality photos.  Otherwise, you can do all your resampling and resizing in the JPEG format.

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