Things Small Business Owners Should Know About Image Size

Photography

Oct 17

Lately I’ve had several clients lament to me how hard it is to get photos to upload to certain websites and platforms because each site has different size requirements. So I wanted to clarify some things around image size and resolution and teach you how to resize your images so that you never have a pesky situation where you can’t get an image to be accepted because of its size.

Let’s start with some definitions!

What is “image size”?

Image size refers to the dimensions of your image; how big your photo is. It is how many pixels there are on each side of your image. It is sometimes called “pixel dimension.”

What is “aspect ratio”?

Aspect ratio describes the relationship between the length and width of your image and so it describes the image shape. For example, a 1:1 image is square. An image in 2:3 is rectangular and is in portrait orientation. If you need to change your aspect ratio, you will need to crop your image (not resize it).

What is “image resolution”?

Image resolution is basically a fancy word for quality. Images are made up of “picture elements” or “pixels. Think of these as small dots that make up your image. There are a certain amount of pixels or dots per square inch of your image. This is usually abbreviated to dpi or ppi. These terms make up what we refer to as image resolution.

Why are image size and resolution important?

Because they determine how your photo will look when it is uploaded to a website or printed in an advertisement.

Is there a one size fits all size or resolution I should ask for my images in?

If you are only planning to use them in one spot then it’s a possibility (scroll down to see some common size requirements), but when the rubber really meets the road you should know how to resize your images yourself for different uses.

Why should you know how to resize an image?

There are several reasons:

If you are printing your photos you need them to be at a high enough quality (resolution) to print without being grainy and poor quality.
If you are uploading them online, certain platforms have different requirements for how big the images can be.
If your images are too big your website will load slowly and you will have a high bounce rate (nobody wants to wait for your site to load).

So what resolution should my images be at?

Resolution (dpi/ppi) isn’t really important for web, but it is super important for print! I recommend leaving it around 300 ppi so that your images are print ready, but you won’t really notice a difference in quality online between 72 ppi and 300 ppi.

And what size or pixel dimension should my images be?

This one is a little bit more complicated and also super important for web use! I’ll include a tutorial for HOW to resize your image below but first, here are some common sizes for different web platforms.

Instagram: 1080 pixels (or px) on the shortest side. So if it’s a square (1:1) photo it should be 1080 x 1080px but if it is 4:5 (recommended) then it should be 1080 x1350px.

Facebook: 1200px on the longest side.

Squarespace: Between 1500 and 2500 pixels wide and 500 KB or less to help your site load quickly.

Etsy: 2000px on the shortest side and less than 1MB in file size for listing photos.

Amazon: at least 1600px on the longest side in order to enable the zoom function, but less than 10,000px on the longest side.

Shopify: square 2048px images are recommended. Max file size is 4472 x 4472 px and up to 20 MB.

Square Up: 600-800px on the longest side with a maximum size of up to 1,000 pixels. The zoom feature kicks in at 700 px on the shortest side.

Pinterest: 1000 × 1500 pixels (2:3 aspect ratio) is recommended for pins.

As you can see there is a wide range of file sizes depending on which platforms you use so it’s important to know how to resize an image yourself!

Here’s my step-by-step tutorial for resizing your images (and cropping them if you need to at well!)

I recommend using photopea.com to resize your images because it is a free service that you can use across windows and mac.

Step 1: Go to photopea.com and click on “open from computer” at the top middle of the screen

Step 2: A dialogue box will come up. Navigate to where your photo is stored on your computer, select it, and click open

Step 3: Go to the “Image” menu at the top and select “Image Size”

Step 4: A dialog box will pop up. Make sure the drop-down is selected on “pixels,” and then type in the number of pixels you’d like

Step 5: Click the link button next to the “height” box so that your image resizes proportionally

Step 6: Make sure you select “Resample”

Step 7: Click okay

Step 8: Go to the “File” menu and then “Export As…” and select “JPG.” When the dialogue box pops up, rename your file and select “Save” (this saves it as a copy so you don’t save over the original file).

If you also need to crop your image, before you resize it, follow these steps:

Step 1: Go to photopea.com and click on “open from computer” at the top middle of the screen

Step 2: A dialogue box will come up. Navigate to where your photo is stored on your computer, select it, and click open

Step 3: Go to the icon menu on the left and hover over the icons until you find the “Crop Tool” (it’s the 5th one from the top that looks like a little box with overlapping corners)

Step 4: Once you’ve selected the crop tool, go to the top menu bar and where it says “Free” drop it down and select “Fixed Ratio”

Step 5: Next to that, put in your aspect ration (1:1 for square, 2:3 for rectangle and so on).

Step 6: Now you can grab a corner with your cursor and crop down or grab in the middle and move your selection to the desired crop

Step 7: Back up at that top menu, click the checkmark and it will crop your selection

If you have a mac and would rather use the built-in program for viewing and editing photos, open your photo in preview, and here’s how to resize:

Step 1: Select the image you want to re-size in your finder window.

Step 2: Right click and select “Open With” and then “Preview”

Step 3: Go to the “Tools” menu and click “Adjust Size”

Step 4: A dialogue box will pop up. Make sure the drop down is selected on “pixels,” and then type in the number of pixels you’d like.

Step 5: Make sure you select “Scale Proportionally” and “Resample Image”

Step 6: Click okay

Step 7: Go to the “File” menu and click “Export” and save it as a new copy of your photo so you don’t loose your higher quality version. If you just click “Save” it will permanently resize your image.

If you also want to crop your image in preview, before you resize it, follow these steps:

Step 1: Put your cursor in a corner of the image, click and hold while you move your selection to the size you want.

Step 2: if you want the aspect ration to remain the same, hold down shift while you complete step 1.

Step 3: If you didn’t make quite the right selection you can grab a corner or a side and move it.

Step 4: After you’ve made your selection you can also grab it and move it to the perfect spot over your photo.

Step 5: Go to the “Tools” menu and select “Crop”

Step 6: Go to the “File” menu and click “Export” and save it as a new copy of your photo so you don’t loose the original. If you just click “Save” it will permanently crop your image.