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Sourcing, Editing, Resizing & Cropping Images

If you are one of our many digital media clients using WordPress and are wishing to update or edit your website images but don’t know where to start with sourcing images, resizing and cropping them we have some handy tips for you.

First of all, you might be wondering where you can source your images.

When sourcing images, due to copyright, you should never use images that you have found online through Google, as this could rack up a heavy bill, sometimes even thousands of dollars.

You have a couple of options when it comes to sourcing images. These options are:

  1. Using your Own Photography: The first option is using photos you have taken yourself.
  2. Using Professional Photography: The second option is using a professional photographer to take your photos.
  3. Using Stock Imagery: The third option is signing up and purchasing images from stock sites. The most common would be: iStock Photo, DepositPhotos  and Shutterstock.

When purchasing images, we normally recommend to buy the largest size, in case you want to use it on print material in the future.

After purchasing images, we would recommend resizing them first, because if you do upload them to your website and just resize them using a Visual Editor, it may still be too large in size and could take longer to load than it should.

Along these lines, you might be wondering how you resize images.

This is often the thing that people have difficulties with, so we thought we would give you some handy tips.

You have a couple of options here, which are:

  1. Image Editing Software: Other than Photoshop (which these days, is only really owned by web designers), you may like to install a free reputable image editing program like Gimp, which is free to download and install. You can download it from here. There are some handy tips online on how to edit images in this program.
  2. An Online Image Resizer: The second option you have, which is really easy to use is a site like Bulk Resize Photos available here.
  3. An Online Image Editing Software: Unlike Gimp, which needs to be downloaded and installed, you have access to Pixlr Editor, which is an online image editor that can be opened in your browser which requires no installation or signup. It’s available here.

We wanted to give you a bit of a quick guide as to how you can use a couple of these techniques to resize and maybe even crop your image to size.

Bulk Resize Photos

This can be used for one image or a bulk amount of images. Here, we will be resizing one image.

1. When visiting this site here, you will be able to choose an image or images to upload. Once selected, click “Next”.

bulk image resizer

2. Once you have chosen an image or images, click on “Width”, “Height” or “Exact Size” to change the dimensions as you please. After you have altered your dimensions, click “Start Resizing”.

bulk image resizer

Note: If you choose exact size and the image is too small to fit into the exact size window you have placed in, it will your image in the centre and a white border on either the top or bottom.

3. Once resized, you will be prompted to save the file or extract the zip file (if you have resized a few images at once). After extracting the zip file (usually by copying the images and placing them into a folder on your computer), you will be ready to upload the image/ images to your site.

pixlr editor

Pixlr Editor

This can be used for resizing or cropping images (where you only want to use a section of the photo). Here, we are going to be resizing your image using Pixlr.

1. When visiting this site here, you will be able to choose an image or images to upload by clicking “OPEN IMAGE FROM COMPUTER”.

pixlr editor

2. When you have opened the desired image from your computer, you will see it come up in the editor.

pixlr editor

3. To resize it, click on “Image”, followed by “Image Size”. When you place a “Width” or “Height” in, it will automatically adjust the other in order to retain the image resolution.

pixlr editor

4. Once you have done this, click “OK”.

Note: If your image is quite large initially it may look smaller in Pixlr than it actually is, after the resize. This is normal. Just save your image after and ensure you are happy with it.

5. To save your image, click on “File”, followed by “Save”. Select the “Format” as well as “JPEG” and click “OK”. You will be prompted to save it to your computer.

As this software can be used for cropping images as well, we will look into cropping your image now.

1. When visiting Pixlr Editor here, you will be able to choose an image or images to upload by clicking “OPEN IMAGE FROM COMPUTER” (See image above from Step 1).

2. When you have opened the desired image from your computer, you will see it come up in the editor (See image above from Step 2).

3. To crop it, click on “Image” in the menu, followed by “Crop”.

4. Drag your mouse around the section you wish to crop. You will see a border around your image when you let go of the mouse.

5. Click “Enter” on your keyboard and your image will be cropped.

6. To save your image, click on “File”, followed by “Save”. Select the “Format” as well as “JPEG” and click “OK”. You will be prompted to save it to your computer.

In Pixlr, you can also undo your changes by clicking “Edit”, followed by “Undo” or using “Ctrl” and “Z” at the same time. You also have access to many other editing tools in the toolbar on the left side that you can use to edit your image. This is very similar to Photoshop.

We hope that if you came across this that it helped!

Feel free to leave any comments below if you have any issues editing images using any of these techniques, or contact us if you would like any assistance.