How to Shrink Photo File Size: The Ultimate Guide

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Irrefutably, images are part of the blood cells of our digital life. Whether it's social media, online accounts, or our workplace, we interact with photos daily.

Today, a friend or colleague would rather choose to share a photo via WhatsApp or whatever platform they love than print it out. While this comes with a lot of flexibility, it can also be limiting. This is because digital images are made of pixels, which take up space in our computer hard drives or online storage—the more pixels, the more space it'd require storing or uploading. Hence, the need to resize the photo size in some circumstances.

Why you may need to shrink your photo file size

• Sharing purpose: We've all encountered "the image size is too large" warning when trying to share or upload a photo file. Mail clients, social media platforms, and online accounts have a photo size limit you can send or share. Shrinking the size can solve the hassle.
• Site performance: If you're a developer or, in some way, you manage or interact with sites, you know how big images can adversely affect the site load time, user experience, and performance in general. Using small photos can save you a ton.
• Storage saver: This can be considered when you're dealing with many images and may require software capable of compressing many image files at a go to reduce their overall file sizes.

How to shrink a photo file

Before we dive into how to shrink file size of photo, it's vital to understand the theory behind pixels. Pixels are tiny boxes, each with a specific color that builds up the picture. The number and size of pixels in an image determine the snap's quality (resolution) and file size.

Well, there are two approaches when shrinking a photo size — resizing and resampling. Resizing means increasing or decreasing the pixel size, while resampling means changing the number of pixels in an image. Each will result in less file size, but resampling does so without affecting the quality much.

Shrink photo size on Mac using Preview

1. Open the file with Preview. Preview comes inbuilt with macOS.
2. Navigate to "Tools" and choose "Adjust size."
3. Keep the "Resample" box checked if you want the program to maintain the aspect ratio automatically.
4. Enter the image width and/or height.
5. Click "OK" to resize. Save it as JPG, PNG, JPEG, or any format you want.

Resize image file size on Windows with Microsoft Paint

Just like Preview on Mac, Paint comes natively with Windows 10. You can use it to resize your images as follows.

• Open Paint or right-click the image you want to shrink and choose "Paint" in the "Open with" menu.
• Press the "Resize" button on the "Home" tab.
• Mark the "Percentage" or "Pixel" and check the "Maintain aspect ratio" if you want to.
• Enter the dimensions as needed and press the "OK" button.
• Navigate to the "File" menu and select "Save As" to save using the preferred format and on the desired location.

Shrinking photo image using Corel PHOTO-PAINT

While Preview and Paint provide basic capabilities, the best way to shrink photo file size is by using advanced photo editing software like Corel PHOTO-PAINT. With advanced resampling features, you can reduce the size of your image without much draining of the quality.

1. Launch the program and navigate to File > Open to select the image.
2. Locate the "Image" menu and select its "Resample" sub-menu.
3. Adjust the width, height, resolution as desired with the option to maintain the aspect ratio and enable/disable the Anti-aliasing feature.
4. Save your image. Share, rename, or upload.

Bottom line

Reduced photo file size comes with many advantages, including faster uploads/shares, less load time, and storage requirements. There are many other solutions out there (online and offline), each promising world-class functionality. Try CorelDRAW by downloading a free trial version.