Resize Your Images Before Uploading to Your Website

OK...you have taken a great photo and you want to upload it to your website. The challenge...with each new generation of cameras, image mega-pixel counts continue to increase. Unoptimized images are appearing on websites across the nation (around the world) with sizes approaching 1, 2, and even higher megabytes, bogging down servers and frustrating users. What does this mean? Website page bailout rates are on the rise as visitors are less likely to wait around for slow loading pages.


The solution: down-size your image...this reflects not only the physical size of your photo, but also the kilobyte (kb) size of the image which influences the download time. You need some form of photo editor.

Perhaps the easiest solution for the average user is to downsize the photo with a nifty little program that is available for free from Microsoft. It is called, interestly enough, Image Resizer and is found in their PowerToy section.

Sure, you would do even better if you were an experienced PhotoShop user, but for average website owners who do not have the time or inclination to learn a high end program, this could be the perfect fit.

You can find Image Resizer and download it from this location: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Once you have downloaded the small file, just install it into your Program files or wherever, Windows will know where it is located.

The cool thing is that this PowerToy enables you to resize one or many image files with a single right-click. So, find the image on your computer...right click...select "Resize Pictures" and either use one of the default sizes provided (probably the smallest), or customize to the exact size you want with the simple "Advanced Feature" setting.

You can either overwrite your existing photo or save as a new smaller image (recommended). And, as previously mentioned, you can save time by resizing multiple images simultaneously.

This is a simple program...but effective. Run through a couple photos and you will have it all figured out.

The Result: Now your website will load much more quickly, and your visitors will be more "happy".