One of the most important aspects of Internet advertising is taking quality photography of properties. After you have taken a great photos, it is then your job to prepare these images for the web. This is a simple process and there are many good packages available today. However I believe the best of these is Adobe Photoshop Elements. Here a few few hints that are easy to learn.
Get Photoshop Elements 3
Photoshop will make preparing images for the web a breeze. It should cost about $175.00 AUD and is simple to learn and install.
Importing Images into Photoshop from your Camera
Photoshop Elements should recognise your Camera once it is plugged into your computer. Simply open Photoshop Elements – Click on File and Select Import, you should see your Camera listed. Just select this.
Resizing Images
This can be done in two ways, image by image or batch (which basically means all images at once).
Image by Image
Click on Image from the menu and then resize. The perfect size is 800 x 600.
Batch
Click on File – Batch Processing and Select:
– Open Files (these are all images you have opened on Photoshop)
– Convert File Type (JPEG or GIF are your only choices for web)
– Convert Image Size (place 800 in first column and make sure Constrain Proportions is ticked. This will ensure all images do not stretch or shrink and look terrible)
– Destination (select the folder you want all the images to be placed in)
Saving Images for the Web
Click on File – Save For Web (make sure the settings are for JPEGS this way you can work the quality from 1 – 100%. The lesser the quality the smaller the file)
Have a little play with this, you should save it with the quality setting as low as you can without compromising the image quality. Photoshop Elements shows you both images when saving for the web so you will be able to see if quality is compromised.
