Thursday, April 19, 2012

Resizing layout for Web

Whether you are wanting to upload your completed layout to facebook, your blog or an online gallery, you'll need to resize it from its printable size.  It's very important to remember that things viewed on the web are much, much smaller than they are printed in real life.  I learned this lesson the hard way.  I created an entire first year book for my daughter (way back when I was just starting out) and I savedt them all on photobucket.  A few months later, our computer died and all I had was the versions on photobucket. I thought I would be just fine until I tried printing them.  No longer at a nice 12x12 inch size, they were just a tiny square on a piece of paper!

So, first create your layout at 12x12 inches at 300 dpi.

Next, save it in that format in a place where you will know you can print it.  I keep a folder called "My Albums"  and I have lots of folders in there where I keep all the layouts I am ready to print.  For example, my 2011 folder has a folder for each month with my layouts saved. I'm almost done and will then upload each of those layouts for printing.

Once I know it has been saved and tucked away for printing (and don't forget to back these files up in case something happens to your hard drive), you will want to shrink your layout from 300 dpi to 72 dpi and 600 pixels by 600 pixels.  If you are using photoshop, there is a "Save for Web" option that will make sure it is optimized and easy to upload online.  If you are using Pixlr, just save at this size and it should work at most galleries and facebook.

I save these web versions in the folder with my kit that I used. That way it is easy for me to give credit to the kit or template designer.

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