What happens to my photo image when I resize it?

Question

When I resize a color photograph from say 44MB to 844KB what does that do to the resolution.....if anything?

What harm does it do to resize my photo's in order to save disk space on my computer?

I have a lot of pictures that are more than 1MB in size....some are 44MB or larger.

I need the disk space but I don't want to degrade my photo's, help me here....besides recommending that I download them to another disk that is.....I know that's an option.

But my question is simply this. Does "resizing" a picture degrade the picture quality or resolution?

Answer 1

Resizing DOWN throws away pixels that you will never be able to get back.

There are some compression formats that keep this to a minimum, but even these will LOSE resolution every time you save an image.

Is there a reason you resist saving the images to a CD or DVD? I archive EVERYTHING on disc, and then re copy the discs about once a year, to minimize the degredation. With Blank CD costing as little as a dime apiece, and DVDs not a whole lot more, there is no reason NOT to. And hundreds of these discs don't take up much space. I use the same spindles the blank discs come on to store the archives. The spindles sit on the shelves and rarely get disturbed.

Answer 2

It diminishes the resolution and the quality of your photograph.

A photo, which you could have printed, say 8x10 .. will now only be able to be printed at say, 4x6.. it will also lose some of the detail and information.

I'd suggest, either burning them to cd/dvd or getting an external hard drive, for disc storage.

Answer 3

If you shrink a photo and the numper of pixels stays the same then yes it will decrease your resolution. A pixel stands for "picture element" and they are they smallest components of the image. Think of them as the tiny dots called "grain" in traditional photography - the finer the grain (more pixels) the sharper the image. Conversely if you have a "grainy" photograph (fewer pixels) the image appears fuzzy. If you can proportionally increase the number of pixels while decreasing the dimensions of the image then you will maintain the same quality.