Resizing Your Photo. From the top bar click on Image>Resize>Image Size. Using this method you can only change your photo proportionally. In other words, if you change the number circled in red (the width) the height will change automatically in proportion. Standard digital photos are 4:3 (1.33:1) and standard photos from a film camera are 3:2 (1.5:1). Thus, this example, which has a height of 800 pixels and a width of 600 pixels will always be 4:3 (800 divided by 600). To save space on ScrapbookYourOwnWebsite layouts select 450 pixels for the width on a Portrait photograph (which will make the height 600) or 600 pixels for the width on a Landscape photograph. For square photographs select 600 pixels for the width and height. The image will be slightly smaller when placed in your scrapbooks, but when your visitors want to see a larger picture, it will expand to the dimensions you set and our software sets allowing them a closer look.

Optimizing Your Photo Even More For Internet Sharing. From the top bar click on File >Save for Web. This is a great feature in Photoshop because it reduces the file size significantly without compromising quality for internet viewing (However, if you ever want to print the picture after you "Save for Web," or if any visitors to your ScrapbookYourOwnWebsite site want to print the picture, you might only want to change the size of the file as mentioned above because the image will no longer be print quality after applying this technique.)

Continuing. This step reduces the size significantly. The image on the left was 791K and the new image on the right is now 46K and will load in 17 seconds with a dial-up connection. It is recommended that you consider whether most of your visitors are on dial-up connections or high speed connection and whether you want the images print quality or not when you apply this step.

Cropping Your Photo. Cropping your photos for a ScrapbookYourOwnWebsite website layout is not generally recommended because the site is designed to work with standard ratios as mentioned above and when you upload a cropped photo our software will automatically stretch it to fit our layouts.

That being said, we do highly recommend cropping a photo into a square though since most scrapbook pages, both paper and digital, fall into this category and we have made allowances in the layouts for this exact scenario. Meaning, the photos will not be stretched if the cropping guidelines are followed and dimensions maintained as specified.

To crop a photo in Photoshop first select the crop tool:

In the width box type in 600px and for the height box also type in 600px. Your crop tool will now be constrained to a perfect square.

Next, left click and drag the crop tool across your photograph, then let go when you like what you see. You can move the box that you've created if you happened to be slightly off the mark.

Once you're happy with the positioning, finalize the crop by double clicking on the image to produce this result:

If you make a mistake and don't like what you see you can hit Ctrl Z and it will reverse your steps. Afterwards, you can "Save for Web" as before or simply maintain the resolution by saving the file normally. At 600 x 600 you will have a suitable size to expand to on a ScrapbookYourOwnWebsite layout.

Resizing Your Digital Scrapbook Pages. If you intend not to print your digital scrapbook pages at 12 x 12 or 8 x 8 or whatever the case may be, and you want to save space for website viewing, then resize your scrapbook layouts to 600 pixels x 600 pixels as mentioned above. And just as before, you can "Save for Web" and reduce the file size even further. Once again though, this will reduce the image quality when it comes to printing so plan accordingly.

If you have further questions please email us at help17 (AT) ScrapWow (DOT) com