Photoshop is an incredibly powerful photo editing and manipulation software program that can help turn your raw photography into eye-catching images. Photoshop is used in a wide variety of applications, including enhancing the quality of the image, editing the composition of the image, adding layers to adjust the dimension of the photo, and so much more. In this multi-part series on the Digital Workshop Center blog, we’ll be providing you with many Photoshop Tutorials to give you the skills you need to utilize the program to fully enhance your photos for a wide variety of uses.
Photoshop Tutorials: How to Resize an Image in Photoshop: Reduce
One of the most applications of the Photoshop program is the ability to resize an image to make it smaller. Modern cameras take high-quality photos that are very large in size. Sometimes these photos need to be reduced to help them display faster on the web. You may also need to resize an image to fit it into another graphic or design. Photoshop makes it fairly easy to resize an image. Follow these steps in the first of our Photoshop Tutorials blog series to help you resize your images properly:
- First of all, open your Photoshop program on your computer and pull the photo you want to resize into the program by choosing “File > Open” in the menu bar at the top left of your screen. Choose the photo you wish to work on from the files on your computer.
- Once the image opens up, to resize the image in Photoshop, click the Image drop-down menu at the top of your program screen. From there, select “Image Size.”
- An image size dialog box will appear once you do so. It will let you change the size of the image based on either pixels or document size. For document size you can choose from a select few measurements including inches and centimeters. You can also change the resolution of the photo. To reduce the size of an image in Photoshop, you’ll want to first change the size of the photo by either reducing the pixels or size of the image. You may also want to change the resolution of the photo if you need the file size to be especially small.
- Before saving the photo, it’s also important to check the “Resample Image” box at the bottom of this dialog window. By doing so, you’ll have the option to select several choices. In this case, you’ll want to select “Bicubic Sharper,” which is the best option for making a photo smaller in Photoshop. This option tells the program what to do with the extra and unneeded pixels now that the image will be smaller. This option will help keep the image sharp looking, despite reducing its size.
- Select “OK” at the top, right-hand side of your dialog box to ensure your photo has been successfully resized.
Photoshop Tutorials: How to Resize an Image in Photoshop: Enlarge
In certain cases, you may want to make your image bigger in Photoshop. This may be because the image is not high enough quality for your print job, or you need to zoom way in on the photo for your project.
- To enlarge a photo in Photoshop, you will want to follow the first two steps outlined above to open a new photo in Photoshop.
- Once you have the “Image Size” dialog box open, you can enlarge the photo based on either pixels or size. In order for the photo to maintain its clarity when you enlarge it, it’s important that the resolution of the photo is at least 300. If this isn’t the case, your image could potentially become blurry, depending on how large you make it.
- As with reducing the image size, you’ll need to make sure you choose your resampling method. This will help the Photoshop program enlarge the photo well. Before saving the photo, check the “Resample Image” box at the bottom of this dialog window. By doing so, you’ll have the option to select several choices. In the case of enlarging a photo, you’ll want to select “Bicubic Smoother,” which is the best option for making a photo larger in Photoshop. This function will make the program create new pixel information based on other pixels around each pixel to create a bigger photo.
- Select “OK” at the top, right-hand side of your dialog box to ensure your photo has been successfully enlarged.
Increasing or decreasing the size of a photo in Photoshop is one of the most practical uses of this application to ensure your pictures are the right size for web, print, or other projects. Stay tuned to the Digital Workshop Center blog for upcoming Photoshop Tutorials that will teach you lots of tricks and tips for this powerful program.
If you’re ready to learn more about Photoshop, consider the Adobe Photoshop for Beginners course at Digital Workshop Center. In this four-part series beginner’s course, students with little or no background in design software or manipulation of images will learn the basics of this program. Click here to learn more about the course. Contact us with any questions or to register!