Resizing Photos Using an Apple/Mac Computer

Question: "Do you know of any programs recommended for Mac-users for creating web-optimized versions of photos? I noticed that the great free image-editing program IrfanView currently only works on Windows PCs, but I'm using an Apple PC to resize and web-optimize my headshots, comp cards, and other photos for my BackStage.com Multimedia Resume!"

Good question! The following info should help:

The standard version of Apple’s “Preview” program that comes with every copy of Mac OS X 10.5+ lets you quickly resize and edit photos:

 

Crop and Resize Images with Apple “Preview”:

“Say you need to quickly resize or crop an image to send to a friend or post on your blog. There’s no need to open an image editor — Preview’s image-editing features can do the trick. To crop an image, open it and then click on the Select button in the toolbar (if you don’t see a square on this button, click and hold it and choose Rectangular Selection). Click and drag to create a rectangle around the area you want to crop. You can resize this rectangle by dragging one of its corners, or you can move it if you need to. Then choose Tools: Crop or press Command-K. If you like what you see, save the file; if not, press Command-Z to go back to the original image. You can then resize your image and even change its resolution. Choose Tools: Adjust Size to enter a width or height in pixels, inches, or other units (choose the unit you want from the pop-up menu to the right of these fields). To maintain the image’s proportions, make sure to select the Scale Proportionally option. To make an image smaller without losing quality, keep Resample Image selected. . .," Kirk McElhearn explains in an article on Macworld.com

Preview also lets you adjust image resolution/quality, which can significantly reduce the total size of your photo file (meaning that it'll upload, email, and open faster) without having to just rely on shrinking the dimensions of the photo.

And the Apple website also recommends a free program called RapidoResizer for easily resizing photos.

And there's a free Apple-approved widget called Photo Drop available for fast resizing/editing.

And you might already have iPhoto on your compute -- it's a little bit more complex of a program compared to some of the others mentioned here, but it can definitely resize pics, and do a lot of other cool image-editing stuff as well. For more help resizing images with iPhoto, click here.

And then there's the free iZoom program for Macs, although I don't know if it's officially recommended by Apple or not.

Also, from what I’ve heard, the program GraphicConverter is the closest equivalent to Irfanview for Mac computers – it’s supposed to be easy to use and very powerful. Technically it costs $35, but I think the “free trial” of GraphicConverter is almost unlimited, which means you can use it forever until you start to feel guilty and decide to pay them (recommended, if you find the program useful).

And, of course, pro-level programs like Photoshop and Apple’s Aperture have lots of options for resizing, editing, and optimizing photos and re-saving the images as various file-types, etc.

Tell us if you find a favorite among this bunch  – we’d be interested in being able to offer Mac users more specific advice.

Quick Tip: By reducing the total dimensions of your photo just a little (for online use, photos should not be larger than your monitor's default "desktop size" -- e.g., you shouldn't need to zoom out to view the full photo) and then lowering your photo's resolution a little (72-300DPI is recommended for most online photos -- going over 300 is usually overkill for website and email use), you'll be able to easily create a web-friendly version of your photo that fits within the recommended upload size-limits of sites like BackStage.com.

Note: Save your photo files using the ".jpg" file-extension before uploading them to BackStage.com! In most photo viewing/editing programs, you can simply choose the "Save As" command from the menu to bring up an option that will allow you to correctly save your photo as a .jpg image file-type. This "Save As" screen may also give you the option to quickly reduce the file's size (image quality/resolution) during the re-saving process.

Related links:

• Mac World's Easy JPG Resizing Tips.
• eduGuru: Optimizing Web Images (why & how)
• Picnik: High-Quality Online Image Resizer (free web-based image resizing -- no software-downloading needed!)

• A guide to posting Headshots/Photos on BackStage.com

• Additional help topics related to posting headshots and resumes on BackStage.com

 

--Luke Crowe, National Casting Editor, Back Stage

 

Comments

[Luke Crowe]

NOTE:

Make sure you photos do NOT contain "special characters" -- they may NOT BE VALID for online use for some applications or display options.

If photos are not displaying correctly on your resume, then special characters are likely the culprit (or else you might have a corrupt file on your hands).

If your photo's files have special-characters in their names, then please delete these photos from your BackStage.com account and then rename your files (on your computer) so that they don’t contain any special characters, and then upload the photos to BackStage.com again.

Invalid special characters include quotes, apostrophes, and punctuation marks - !@#$%^&*()

Spaces are also not recommended for file names. Instead, use the Underscore character (_)

E.g., instead of calling your photo “Luke Crowe's B&W #A Photo.jpg” I’d recommend calling it “Luke_Crowe_BW_001A.jpg” (without the quotes, of course).

That’ll work with a lot better with Back Stage's online database, your resume's display options, and with the widest range of possible web-browsers and email programs that various casting directors may be using to view your photos.

The special-character rules described in the following CSS-file help-article apply to photo-files as well

http://webdesign.about.com/od/css/f/blfaqcssfilenam.htm

************************

Key Excerpt (slightly paraphrased):

* DO NOT USE SPECIAL CHARACTERS! You should only use the letters a-z, numbers 0-9, underscore (_), and hyphens (-) in your file names. While your file system may allow you to create files with other characters in them, your server OS might have issues with special characters.

* DO NOT USE ANY SPACES. Just like with special characters, spaces can cause problems on Web servers. It's a good idea to avoid them in your file names.

* The file name should start with a letter. While this isn't an absolute requirement, some systems have trouble with file names that don't start with a letter.

* Use all lower case. While this isn't required for a filename, it's a good idea, as some Web servers are case sensitive, and if you forget and reference the file in a different case, it won't load.

* Keep the file name as short as possible. While there is a limit of file name size on most operating systems, it is much longer than is reasonable for a CSS file name. A good rule of thumb is no more than 20 characters for the file name not including the extension.