# Photoshop Tip #7 - A Better Resize



## Sylvanite (Mar 15, 2013)

_"Pay attention, son, this is for your own good. You gotta understand the scientific principle behind it! There’s a right way and a wrong way." - Foghorn Leghorn

"That must be the wrong way!" - Henery ChickenHawk (in response)

"Size isn't everything." - Dr. Ruth Westheimer_

When we talk about the "size" of a digital photograph, we mean two different things:
 the dimensions of the image (how many pixels high and how many pixels wide), and
 the filesize (how many bytes of storage the image occupies).
I showed a way to control both of these in http://www.penturners.org/forum/f24/photoshop-tip-1-saving-images-web-76746/.  Now I'd like to introduce a better way to set the image dimensions.

The downside of the previous method, is that it works only when saving the image.  That can be a problem because any time you resample an image, you introduce softness (blur), or noise.  If you resize while saving, you don't have a chance to correct that.  Therefore, I prefer to resample my pictures directly within Photoshop.

Click Image -> Resize -> Image Size:







That brings up the resize dialog: 






Make sure the "Constrain Proportions" and "Resample Image" checkboxes are checked.
Change the width or height to the desired size (the other will change automatically to preserve the image proportions).  In this example, I've chosen 800 x 600 pixels (which is the maximum size you can post in an IAP forum).  Because I'm shrinking the image, I've also selected "Bicubic Sharper" from the drop-down-list at the bottom of the dialog box.  This will reduce the amount of blur introduced by resampling.






Click "OK", and this is the result:






I hope that helps,
Eric


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