In this quick tutorial we're going to re-size one of my avatar PNG graphics and save as JPG ready to use as a profile pic on social media. Every site has different image size requirements and while some sites allow you to resize during the upload process, for many other sites, you'll need your image to be exactly the right size.
For this example, just to show you how to do it, I'm going to take a 400px square image and reduce it to 200px using the free online editor Pixlr.
Start by opening your web browser and navigating to pixlr.com.
It will look like this:
STEP 1:
Let's get setup. Pixlr has two editor options. We're doing something very basic so let's use Pixlr X (on the left). Click this box and the editor will open up right on your screen.
It should look like this...
Now we need to upload our image. Click the "Open Image" button and navigate your computer files to find the image you want to re-size, select that file and click ok.
It will appear on your screen like so:
STEP 2:
To size the image we need to open the "Layout" box. This is the third icon down in the left hand icon menu. In this menu we want the "Resize page (scale)" option.
Click this button and another menu box will open where we'll make our adjustments.
STEP 3:
You should now see the following box, which tells you the current dimensions of the image measured in pixels.
Like so...
All we need to do here is change the number 400 to 200.
You'll see two toggle switches for constrain and smoothing. These should be on (blue) and left on, don't change these.
You also want to size DOWN, never size up on raster images like this or they will be blurry. Your screen should now look like the example below. Click apply to make the change to the image.
STEP 4:
All that's left to do is save and download the re-sized image. At the bottom right of your screen you'll see a blue "Save" button. Click this and a menu box will appear. Most likely the save menu will choose the same file format the graphic is already in. In this case we have resized a PNG image so it's suggesting PNG as the save option.
However, because I'm uploading the image as a profile pic I don't want a transparent background (some sites replace transparency with black and you get a distortion in the image). If I save as a JPG a default white background will be applied and I'll get a better upload to my social media page.
Choose JPG from this menu unless you know you need a PNG with a transparent background.
This is what the JPG saving options look like. I'm going to leave all the settings at the default because I want as high a quality as possible.
Now just click save as, rename your file if you want to, click ok and the image will automatically download to your computer's download folder.
Job done!
Happy creating!
Shawnna
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