Preparing Photographs for Upload

Photographs are useful for identifying your students and members - however they can be tricky to upload if you don't have experience.

Following is a quick guide to resizing an image to an appropriate size before uploading.

The Software

If you have scanned your images, you probably already have the software to resize and crop them. However, if you do not, or simply don't know how, there is a great free program called Irfan View, which can help out.

Irfan View may be downloaded from its website here (http://www.irfanview.com). It is simple to install - simply download the installation file, and run it. You will be prompted with a few questions about the installation, and after a few steps the program will be installed and accessible from your start menu.

Using Irfan View to Crop Images

Let's say you have a picture of a member, but it's a group shot with a few other members. You need to cut out the member you're after so that you can upload his / her picture. This means you need to crop the image.

Here's a step by step guide to cropping an image in Irfan View.

  1. Open up Irfan View
  2. From the menu bar, click File -> Open
  3. Select the image.
  4. On the open image, visualise a box around the member you want to cut out of the image.
  5. Click where you think the top-left of this box should be, then drag down and right to where you think the bottom-right of the box should be, then release the mouse button.
  6. From the menu bar, click Edit -> Crop Selection.

You will see that the box you selected is now the entire image. From here, you can simply save the image as is (File -> Save As), or go on to resize the image and prepare it for upload.

Using Irfan View to Resize Images

If you have an image that won't fit fully on your screen without zooming out, chances are you're going to need to resize it before uploading. The SSI Online Administration System only accepts images up to approximately 150k.

Here's a step by step guide to resizing an image in Irfan View:

  1. Open up Irfan View
  2. From the menu bar, click File -> Open
  3. Select the image.
  4. The image should now appear in Irfan View.
  5. From the menu bar, click Image -> Resize / Resample
  6. When the resize / resample box appears, make sure the 'Preserve aspect ratio' checkbox is checked. This makes sure the height of the image is resized in proportion to the width.
  7. In the 'Set New Size' area, set the width to something like 600. If the size is already 600 or less, the image should be small enough to upload.
  8. You will see that the height value automatically changes with the width. If it doesn't recheck that you have 'Preserve Aspect Ratio' checked.
  9. Click 'OK', and the image will now be resized.

From here, you can save the image as is (File -> Save As) or prepare it for upload by changing the file format to .jpg, and compressing it.

Using Irfan View to Compress Images

Irfan View allows you to compress image files so that they are smaller, and easier to upload.

Here's a step by step guide to compressing images using Irfan View:

  1. Open up Irfan View
  2. From the menu bar, click File -> Open
  3. Select the file you want to compress
  4. The image should now appear in Irfan View
  5. From the menu bar, click File -> Save As
  6. From 'Save as Type' select 'JPG - JPEG Files'.
  7. On the right will be a dialogue box giving you compression information.
  8. Slide 'Save Quality' to the right or left until it is '80'.
  9. Give the file a name, and save.

If you have cropped and resized the image before compressing it, it should now be ready for upload.