Shrinking Image File Sizes for Use on the Web

By Anonymous -
Staying after school to try put a few photos on the web, only to have it take ages to upload?
Hearing from parents that the photos on your blog take forever and a day to load?

We've got a solution for you!

Photos taken from most digital cameras, even from class iPads, are a lot bigger than they seem. This is to preserve image quality in case these images are being used for big publications. "Raw" images from 5MP+ (megapixel)  cameras are especially large when you copy them to the computer, usually around 3MB (3000KB) for our school cameras. Yet most websites do not need this level of detail, and a typical image on a website is less than 100KB in file size to ensure smooth browsing and no wasted uploading time.

GUIDE: How to use iPhoto to shrink image file sizes for use on the web.
  1. Connect your camera/memory card and open iPhoto.iPhoto usually opens by default when you connect a camera or memory card full of photos. If not, you can open it from Finder>Applications>iPhoto.
  2. Import your photos.
    You can name the event(s) that your photos are from, this makes it easier to find them again later. Select the photos you want to put on your computer and then click the import button!
  3. Choose photos to export for the web.
    From the Library menu to the left, open the events or photos pages and select the photos you want to export for your blog or other website. Selected photos are bordered in yellow. Use command ⌘+A to select them all easily, or hold ⌘+Click to add individual selections.

  4. Select Export from the File menu.
  5. Select the Web Page option.
    Selecting the web page option will compress the image to be best suited for websites. This is very important! The other settings allow you to adjust maximum physical dimensions of the images, but generally the default settings are fine for most pictures you would put on a blog or website.
  6. Click Export, and choose a folder to put all your new web-ready images!
    If you're using these for Blogger, I recommend keeping a folder called "Blog" or similar with subfolders for images you have exported within it, perhaps listed by date or the title of the post to make them easy to find.
Now all the newly exported and compressed ("shrunken") photos in your folder are 10-50 times smaller in file size and still look great when posted to websites, plus you've exported them out of iPhoto into a convenient folder you can use to upload them to the internet. If you're interested in creating a simple slideshow for your blog, please see my next guide!

-M

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