Scaling an image for use on a web page significantly helps in how fast the website loads when you search on Google. The golden rule is not to use bigger pictures than you need.
In order to optimize your photos as best as possible, you may want to use a photo editor. There are many of them on the internet and many of them are free. Here are some links where you have the ability to both crop and scale images:
But, how do you reduce the size of an image?
It is important to know that there is a difference between cropping an image and reducing the size of an image. When you crop an image, you cut away parts of the image. When you reduce an image, you shrink the image but retain the proportions and the entire image. In order for this not to cause the image to be stretched or pinched together, it must be reduced by something called Aspect ratio. Aspect ratio retains the ratio of height to width of the image, no matter how much you shrink it.
So that you do not have to sit and calculate the Aspect ratio yourself, you can, as I said, use an image editing program. All you do then is determine either the height or the width of the image, and then the program calculates the Aspcet ratio for you.
Reduce the resolution of an image
This can be a bit confusing, but there is a difference between reducing the size of the image in pixels or percent and reducing the resolution of the image in pixels. Then we talk about size in Kilo Byte (KB), MegaByte (MB) or Giga Byte (GB)
The more pixels an image has, the clearer and clearer it will be, so reducing the resolution of the image will cause some to become a little blurrier. As a rule, this does not have much to say on the web, since images are rarely so very large. But it has a lot to say for how quickly your website loads them. Large images take longer to load than smaller ones.
Can you scale an image up to make it bigger?
Pictures, as I said, are made up of pixels. If you scale up an image to be larger than the original image, it will pixellate and blur. Therefore, you may want to always save on the original of the photo in addition to what you are clearing down. Then you have the option to insert the image in a larger format if what you have inserted turns out to be too small.
