Resize Images with Photoshop.  It’s a lot easier than you might think.

By Pausha Foley

In this post I’ll take you through what usually is the first step anyone takes with newly digitized files: resizing them.

• Understanding “Pixelation.”

But before I tell you what to do and how let me ask you a question: have you ever wondered why some digital images look like this:

while others look like this?

The answer lies in the nature of Photoshop files.

Photoshop is a pixel – based program. What it means is that any image opened inside of Photoshop is made out of of pixels, tiny little dots of color. Being really small they are indistinguishable, but you can see them when you zoom in very closely:

Each image has a certain amount of pixels per every square inch. The more pixels there are, the sharper and clearer your image will be.

When you resize your image to make it smaller, Photoshop takes several neighboring pixels and melts them into one, thus reducing their overall number, which makes the image smaller. Photoshop cannot, however, reverse this process.

Once you’ve told Photoshop to merge pixels into one it will not be able to separate them again in a way that reconstructs the different hues and shades of the original pixels. Photoshop will simply stretch the new pixels, make them larger to accommodate the larger size you requested. As a result the pixels become large enough to be seen, producing a terribly “pixelated” image:

The moral of this story is as follows: you can make your files smaller in Photoshop, but you cannot make them larger again.

NOTE: The concentration of pixels per image is determined during the scanning process, and once your file is digitized and lives on your hard drive, what you have is what you are stuck with.

Now that you understand exactly how the resizing process works let me show you how to execute it.

• With your scanned image open, click on image/image size in the MENU bar:

• you will see this window:

There is a lot that can be said about the image size window. As a Photoshop beginner you can ignore most of what’s in it and focus on the “Document Size” section:

As you see you can type in whatever width and height you wish your image to have. From the drop down menu you can choose whatever measurement you prefer – inches, centimeters, percents etc.

• An important feature to notice is the “Constrain Proportions” function:

When this function is selected Photoshop will make sure that if you change one value the other will adjusts automatically, to preserve the original proportions of your image.

If you uncheck the “Constrain Proportions” box you will be able to change dimensions of your image independently from each other.

• Another important value that will need your attention is Resolution:

Resolution tells you exactly how many pixels there are in every square inch of your image. When resolution is concerned there are two values that you have to remember: 300 and 72.

Set the resolution to 72 if you are resizing your image in order to post it online. This is the standard value for web images, small enough for your file to open quickly, large enough to preserve fairly good quality.

In any other case, especially If you are intending to have your images printed, keep the resolution at 300, which is a standard value for images destined for prints.

Of course you will remember that, when it comes to resolution (the number of pixels), what you get is what you are stuck with and, while you can make their number smaller in Photoshop, you cannot make it larger. Therefore it is a good idea to, whenever possible, make sure that your scanner and camera is set to 300 resolution, or the largest available

Once you’ve selected your width, height and resolution to your satisfaction, click okay and there you are, your image is now resized! NOW, don’t forget to SAVE it!

But what if you now realize that the image has become too small? It is already resized, your pixels are merged and going back to the “Image Size” window to make the image larger will only make it terribly pixelated.

To deal with this situation you will have to back up a step, go back to the larger image and resize it again.

• If you haven’t closed your image yet you can press “Z” on your keyboard while holding down “command” button, which will take you one step backward. As you’ll notice in many of our tutorials, Command-Z (or UNDO) will quickly become your dearest friend.  (NOTE: Windows users, use Control-Z for the Undo Command)

• If you have already closed the resized image there is nothing to be done but to go to the original file and start over.

• If you have closed the resized image after saving it over the original file there is nothing you can do. Therefore it is always a good practice to keep your original files intact and save the edited images under a different name.

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If you enjoy learning about new trending tech topics, gadgets, toys, and other digital creative fun stuff, you won’t want to miss out on our monthly Stress-Free Digital Lifestyle Newsletter!

We cover Tech Tips & Tricks, Creative Software, Important Security Updates, and the tech news stories you want to know about.

It’s FUN, it’s FREE, and it takes less than 10 seconds to sign up. Now that’s fast!