There are two essential preparatory steps necessary to get a picture fit for web display before you upload the picture to your blog or other web display space. The process is called image optimization. (search “image optimization” for lots of how-to info and tools)

• Step 1 – re-dimension the picture to the actual dimensions in pixels that you want it to display once it is inserted in the web page. Keep in mind that the bigger the picture is dimensionally, the bigger its file size will be, even after compression.
• Step 2 – compress the final picture after you re-dimension it using an image optimizer utility that outputs to an image format suitable for display on web pages – usually jpeg, gif or png.

Advanced image editing software like Photoshop, Fireworks etc. have access to optimization tools inside these editors. Consumer grade photo editors also have image optimization tools but they are generally hidden away deep in the program and often don’t get found, learned or used by the casual photo publisher.

There are many good image optimizers available online or in the free image editing programs being made available for download. You just have to find them and use them.

One such program is Google Picasa™. It’s free, fairly easy to use and does a pretty good job of organizing your photos. It provides a fairly extensive, though basic, set of photo touch-up tools. It also has an image optimizer in it. Unfortunately, the optimization function can be hard to find for the causal user.

The video in this post is a quick guide to using Picasa to get a picture web-ready in just a few clicks. Do yourself a favour and learn how to optimize your pictures before you get that “over storage quota” notice or surprise bandwidth overuse charge from your web host.

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