Modern camera arrays allow you to take photos of incredibly high resolution, which, in turn, increases the size of the image. One could put up with this if most of the photographs taken were not uploaded to the Web. Unfortunately, many sites seriously limit the size of downloaded images or automatically create small copies, which is why the pictures greatly diminish in quality. This raises the question of how to reduce the size of the photo, while maintaining maximum color information.
Ways
There are several ways to reduce the photo:
- Use the built-in Windows tools
- resort to the help of special converters;
- crop photo;
- delete EXIF information (although this method does not allow you to cut the weight of the photo too much).
If you process a large number of images in Lightroom, you can use the export settings. In this program, of course, there is a built-in converter that can reduce the size of the photo both during saving and in the process of working on them. In the export window, it’s enough to set only the size of the wide side of the photo and observe how the program itself optimizes the images in size.
Adobe Photoshop also has a built-in converter that allows you to both reduce photos and stretch them. To do this, call the image size menu with the key combination Ctrl + Alt + I and select the desired values for the future image. There are no complicated settings in the window, so we will not dwell on each item.
How is the decrease?
To reduce the weight of the photo, compression is divided into several types: lossless and lossy compression. When reducing the size of the photo without loss of quality, as a rule, the deterioration is invisible to the eye and can be used for pictures with any content, especially for those where it is important to preserve the integrity of the picture. When using this compression format, drastic image resizing is not possible.
Lossy compression is preferably used for small, abstract and medium quality shots. The size can be significantly reduced, but a significant part of the image information is lost.
Usually, the second method is used to crop photos. Weight reduction is achieved by subtracting various garbage data, for example, duplicated or too light pixels, replacing pixels with numerical values and cutting out unnecessary information. In any case, photography reduces not only weight, but also quality. Although it is worth noting that the deterioration is directly proportional to the size of the reduction. But how to reduce the photo without losing quality and is it realistic to do this without third-party programs?
Is it possible to reduce the photo without distortion?
There are converters that do the job really high quality and almost imperceptible to visual perception. Nevertheless, reducing the size of the photo without losing quality is possible only with a slight reduction in weight. If you want to optimize the picture to the maximum, you will have to select compression values at which the quality remains acceptable.
However, greatly reducing the size of images is only useful if they are uploaded to the network, to save space on servers and speed up loading sites. For simple storage on your home PC, reducing the file size does not play a significant role.
How to reduce photo size using Windows?
The easiest way to reduce the image is to trim its physical size. This does not require any special programs or third-party services. You can use the good old Paint editor. In order to reduce the size of the photo, as in the previous case, we perform a few simple manipulations:
- right-click on the photo and select "Edit" in the list;
- By default, the picture will open in the Paint editor;
- on the top panel, find and select the “Resize” icon or go to the settings window with the combination Ctrl + W;
- enter the desired value and click save.
Downsizing by third-party programs
Many sites set a limit for input files of up to 1 MB. Reducing the size of the photo both in physical size and in weight will be the most correct option to achieve the desired result. For example, you can crop part of the image in the editor, and after that, also compress it to the maximum.
Although 1 MB for pictures is enough to store a lot of information, photos with an original size of several thousand pixels may still not fit into these limits.
The network has a great service called Optimizilla, which can compress files to record low sizes. For example, an original photograph of 3.5 MB in size loses 90% of the weight with a quality of 70%, which practically does not degrade the picture. The converter effectively copes with large-sized images, but still, it’s better not to upload too large photos, since reducing the size of the photo to 1 MB from the original 20 MB is quite problematic in any case.