How do I reduce the image size to 200kb and keep detail?

[herbnallison]

I am using photoshop. When I try to reduce the size to Trekearth specs they are so pixilated all the detail is gone. There is so little detail it's not worth posting. Many of the photos posted are over 1 meg. I don't understand what's going on.

[AdrianW]

The only time a photograph on TE is going to be over 1Mb is if it's posted as a large panorama - all other images are under 200kb.

Remember that what you see in the status bar at the bottom of the Photoshop window is the <i>uncompressed</i> size. If you right click on the images on TE and select properties you'll see the images are below 200kb.

How do you achieve this? Well, first up resize your image to a maximum of 800 pixels in any direction. I'd use bicubic resize myself, then I'd sharpen it (how? that's another story). Then either use SaveAs, choose JPEG and vary the Image Quality slider until you see

[AdrianW]

Sorry about that, I don't know where the rest of the previous message went. It was there before I clicked Post, but then it vanished :(

---- continued ----

How do you get your image below 200kb? Well, first up resize your image to a <i>maximum</i> of 800 pixels in any direction. I'd use bicubic resize myself, then I'd sharpen it (how? that's another story). Then either use SaveAs, choose JPEG, click Save and vary the Image Quality slider until you see the Image Size is just below 200kb.

You can use SaveForWeb instead of SaveAs, the advantages are that you'll be able to compare the compressed image with the original, and you'll be able to fine tune the size more - the disadvantage is that it will strip all unnecessary information from the image, including the EXIF data - so if you're using a digital camera you'll have to add the exposure information to your upload manually.

If you're still having problems, can you post an unresized test image somewhere for us to look at?