How to Resize Images for Zujava

A few people have asked how to resize images for use on Zujava, so we're publishing this tutorial to make that easy. Resizing images really only takes a minute, and doesn't have to compromise the quality of the image. 

So why do we need Writers to resize their images before uploading? If we didn't have images under a certain file size, the site would run dinosaur slow. Large images equals long, laboriously slow page load time, and that's not very user friendly. Leaves can also have many, many images on a single page, so limiting the file size is a must to ensure readers can access your content. 

Let's get started.

To resize an image, here's the easiest way. Open the image in your photo editing program. Let's assume you have Photoshop. Scroll over to "image" and select "resize" from the drop down. Change the image size to something smaller, but still large enough that the image is high quality. When you're done, click OK, then save the image. A popup may ask you what quality you'd like to save your image as. You can select medium for the sake of web publishing. 

The result should be a file size that is now acceptable to Zujava. And, while you're saving your image, it may not be a bad idea to rename the file to something that describes the image, like "fresh salad with avocado." 

In Paint Shop, the process is similar. Head to image>resize, and choose smaller pixel dimensions. The pixels will be altered in proportion when you edit a size value of the image, so it won't be stretched or warped (and you won't have to figure out the dimensions of the photo in order not to compromise the ratio).

If you don't have either one of these photo editing programs, GIMP is free to use, and offers free tutorials in many places. Resizing a photo is probably much the same in GIMP.

Other Ways to Resize Photos

These are the most popular ways to resize photos, but other ways do exist. On these sites, you simply upload a photo and input the new dimensions that you'd like your photo to be. Search Google for "resize photos" to find dozens of sites that specialize in this.

Last, but not least, you can set your camera to take smaller photos. Changing the pixel size of photos can result in smaller image files that do not need to be shrunk down for use on Zujava. Try setting your images to have pixel dimensions of 1200 x 1200 or smaller, and you likely will never run into problems uploading a photo.

Intro photo by Miguel Vaca on flickr, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.