Resizing your Images
It is important for students to make sure the jpegs they are uploading to their tutors aren't too large as tutors need to download them all and view them. Not everyone has great internet so we need to make sure the images are optimised. The following information might help you in doing this, however if you have any questions please don't hesitate to email us at any time.
Preparing your photos for your tutor
A good quality scan or photograph, optimised in the right way, is perfect for our tutors to assess. Many students use the free software called GIMP, so please view our GIMP Tutorials for guidance.
- All images must be saved and uploaded in the file format JPEG.
- Ideally files should be kept to around 1mb in file size.
- They should be individually uploaded, opposed to collating them in MSWord or PDF.
- Rotate the images so they are the correct way up before uploading.
- Crop your images so that only the artwork or bleed marks are visible
Scanned images and digital photos are usually quite large in file size and this can take a long time for tutors to download. So we recommend students prepare their images before they upload them to The Art Room. Opening your photos in any photo editing software and resize using the pixel dimensions to between 1500 to 2000 pixels wide.
What are pixel dimensions? This is how many pixels make up your image in length and width. The larger the dimensions are, the larger the file size will be. When you’re saving an image in your photo editing software it will not only give you the option to resize the image using pixels but often there’s a slider included to control the quality. This will be either in the image size settings or when you are saving the image. This slider usually has a 1 to 100 scale which controls the compression of the image 100 being the original quality.
We recommend setting the slider to 50% quality as there isn't usually a lot of visual difference between that and the original. It is important at this point to save the image as a new JPEG file - don't overwrite your original!
Resizing and Uploading on your Phone
If you don't have access to photo editing software or you are working on a tablet or phone, you can find free image resizing tools online. Load the website, upload your image and it will provide options for quality settings and then resize for you. An easy to use app for the iPhone is Image Size and it will resize your images and save them as new files for you to upload.
If you are using GIMP for your photo editing, please view our gimp tutorials. If students need further guidance, or wish to ask any specific questions please use our contact page to get in touch.
