How to Resize Your Photos Easily on Windows


In recent years the cost of digital cameras, as well as digital camera memory chips, have been decreasing rather rapidly. These trends, along with increasing hard drive capacity, have paved the way for a situation in which individuals often store hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures on their computer. Now, in all honesty, transferring pictures from a digital camera to a PC is relatively quick and easy; even high quality (read large) images can be placed on your desktop in a matter of seconds. However, the problem arises when you wish to send these gargantuan files (some reaching 5 to 10 Megabytes in size) to a friend or family member. While it is useful to keep large backups of your images (just as you would wish to keep a photos negative back in the old days), it is not useful to send these fully-featured files to a friend.

Fotosizer screenshot

So how does one go about reducing a picture’s size in order to make it easy to send and receive? Additionally, how does one perform this action for a whole host of images? There are programs out there which perform this exact procedure; however, none seems easier than Fotosizer. Fotosizer is a small and free Windows application which allows you resize an image, or group of images, either relatively (reducing an image by, say, 50% or 100%) or absolutely (reducing an image to 1024 pixels by 768 pixels). The procedure for using this software application couldn’t be easier; simply add an image (or folder of images), select your resize specifications, select your output file format (BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, or TIFF), choose where you want the new smaller files to be saved, and then start the procedure.

It should be emphasized that Fotosizer is a single-use application. If you need to modify your image’s contrast or add some special effect to it then will need to look elsewhere, likely to some variant of Photoshop. However, if you simply want to resize a single image, or a huge group of images, then Fotosizer is your product. The benefit of it being single use is that, as described above, it is extremely easy to use. Even if you are a computer novice you will have no problem navigating around the interface.

So there you have it, a great little free program which will save you and your friends the frustration of overly bloated digital photos.

Guest Post: Keith is a computer technician who, via his blog, discusses a wide range of Vancouver computer repair topics including how to repair a home network.

32 thoughts on “How to Resize Your Photos Easily on Windows”

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  3. I use Picasa 3 for my photos when grabbing from my digital camera and then Photoshop or Firewoeks to edit them into the size I want, but this software does look simple and easy to use, I may just have to check it out for myself 😉

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  4. Nice Programm, but i fiend the Art of ImageResizer is better. With that tool you can go in the Windows Explorer and take the Picture / or More you want in a other sice and can say with right Mouse – resize to x. Is a good feauture, i love it

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  5. Fotosizer seems to be easy to use.. But I want to know if the images become pixelated when you try to resize them? This is the problem I usually encounter with other photo resizing software. Thanks!

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  6. Yah, I find that in this day and age there are many good photo manipulation programs. I like fotosizer for two reasons. First of all, it is free. Secondly, it is easy to use (so easy in fact, that I was able to teach my mom how to use it :] ). Truthfully, I have not used Picasa; however, I have heard good things about it.

    I also recommend online picture resizing sites (like picresize.com) to computer novices. This way they don’t have to worry about installing a program, running it, and such. Sure, the feature set may be somewhat limiting; however, they do a good job providing the basics (resizing so that you can send your pictures to a friend or use it in a poster/Microsoft Word document).

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  8. I usually use Gimp to scale images, but of course I can only do one at a time with it. This looks awesome since it allows us to resize a whole batch at once! Will definitely try it.

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  9. In most cases, I use Photoshop to resize my photos. Of course, after reading this article, I find Fotosizer is a better tool because it is so simple.

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  10. Yes…I really tested Fortosizer and it was really very effective tool for resizing photos. Thank you for this post. Tested and proven tool for best photo design not will never fade or blur.

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  11. I am also use paint to re-size my photography and you gave a new thing for it thank you for highlighting it……………………..

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  13. In response to Paul,

    Images typically become pixelated when enlarged beyond their normal size. So for instance, if I had an image which was 640*480 pixels and then I attempted to double it to 1280*960 then in all likelihood the resulting image would look pixelated. This is because your computer has to create image data out of nowhere. Even in excellent programs like Photoshop this can be a problem if you go to the extremes (of course, you can also use filters to manipulate the picture a bit).

    Fotosizer tends to “shrink” images, therefore, pixelation is not as big a deal. Truthfully, I don’t know what algorithm they use to shrink the images. However, I have used it numerous times and it does a fairly admirable job (especially for an application which is free :] ).

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  14. We have always struggled with sizing photos. Thanks for the info, hopefully we will figure it out in due time! Going to check out fortosizer. Wish us luck. 🙂
    Blessings,
    Ron

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  15. In response to Christie

    I personally don’t use Gimp; however, I took a quick search around the net and found a plugin (basically a small add-on) to Gimp called “David’s Batch Processor” which, apparently, allows you to perform functions on a bunch of images at one time. Take a look here if you want: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~hodsond/dbp.html.

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  17. Since I read this article I never posted here because I want to prove that Fotosizer is useful for us. And now that this tool is really effective. I do encourage others to use this. Easy to be used and user friendly. Thanks for the great job.

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  19. Thanks for the tips. I was using Microsoft Picture Manager for this but Fotosizer’s ability to handle multiple pics @ a time has got my attention 😉

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    • Yeah, that is one of the biggest reasons why I like programs like Fotosizer; they allow you to ‘batch’ process things (without the scripting or coding). Doing a single photo re-size is easy. Doing 1,000 photo re-sizes is a big pain manually.

      Reply
  20. Thanks for posting this article. Fotosizer really help me in resizing pictures easily. I am very confident that this toll is really effective. This is more a Picture Manager in your PC. Thanks again for helping us.

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  21. This is a very cool Image Tool..And I believe that not only could appreciate this one. Very user friendly and useful to every one. Thanks for posting this one.

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  22. I’m not too good with image tools; I’ve tried Photoshop itself, and it just doesn’t work for me. Is this tool any better?

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    • I have used Photoshop extensively and must say that I consider it to be the best 2D raster program out there (largely due to the concept of layers). Fotosizer is only an extremely small subset of Photoshop. It lets you resize (scale) images – great for those who are only interested in this task for photos.

      If you wish to touch up pictures in Fotosizer, however, good luck :]

      Reply
  23. I use Photoshop or Fireworks to edit them into the size I want, but this software does look simple and easy to use, It is very flexible and easy to use.

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  24. I use Picasa for my photos, but this software seems so easy to use that I have to test it! Thanks for sharing this info! 🙂

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