Q: Can I resize a photo using Windows Vista? A: No.
I was chatting with a good Mac-expert friend of mine and she asked a simple question: “How do I resize a photo in Windows Vista without downloading extra software?” After pondering for a few minutes, I swallowed my Microsoft Windows pride and said: “You can’t.” The rest of the discussion isn’t appropriate for this blog…
I’m actually very disappointed I cannot perform such a common task in Windows Photo Gallery. Sure, you can automatically fix photos, adjust colors, re-balance, manipulate exposure, email, print, and hell even tag photos, but you can’t resize them. How embarrassing.
Maybe I should email Steven Sinofsky about this, so we can all enjoy a nine-hundred page dissertation blog post on why the Windows Photo Gallery team felt it unnecessary to incorporate such a feature. If we’re lucky, we’ll get juicy tidbits on Mozart too.
Nitpicker’s corner: I understand you can use the Email hack, but you can’t customize this list with your own resolutions (easily) and the thought of having to launch an email application, that I might not even have installed, is absolutely ridiculous.
Actually, MSPaint can perform this resizing option:
http://www.horse13.com/imageuploadr/images/695764resize-mspaint.jpg
God, do you even use Windows?? xo
That is worse than the email hack…
o hai. mspaint wrks.
I was under the influence the whole idea was to keep it as simple as possible although that is indeed ridiculous. I’ve never really needed to use Windows PHOTO GALLERY to resize my images though. :)
*ahem* PHOTO GALLERY :)
@Steven You didn’t delete it as soon as you could?
Microsoft Paint resizes images. As to can the out-of-the-box installed Windows Photo Gallery.
Please amend this error in your blog post.
@Liyster I’m sorry but what? I can crop but not resize. Just like every other Vista user.
Please amend the clarity of your post.
Wait… you’re complaining that you can’t resize an image because you deleted the program that resizes images?
Surely Windows is still shipped with MSPaint. Right click your photo or open up paint and resize to your specifications. Alternatively, since you don’t have the upgraded version of Photo Gallery, take a trip on over to the Windows Live website and snag it there. You should be resizing photos in no time!
Why is it so important to be able to do something like that without having to download software? Windows’s claim to fame is the amount and versatility of software available for it. There is a plethora of free software available for Windows that can edit images, such as Paint.NET. (Which is what I personally recommend. for people looking for free software.) If you’re at a computer and have no internet access, you’re kind of screwed no matter what your OS is. If you can’t install software because it’s a business or school computer, then use portable software from a flash drive. Can you use portable software on a Mac? (Legitimate question, as I do not know the answer.)
Also, while I admit that Windows should have a lot more simple software included, the fact that people use it as an argument against Windows is pretty sad..
Paint (as seen) will be getting new features but Windows Live Gallery (which should replace the built-in Gallery) should have basic fixes like Picasa has.
@Phil No one deleted anything
@Jesse Yes.. it is
@Vance has a great point
Windows is far more versatile when it comes down to software. I’ve never heard of a Mac-dev
Windows Live Photo Gallery (the upgrade to Windows Photo Gallery) has a Resize option.
Umm, Paint? Realize it’s quick and dirty, and can only resize by percentage, but of course you can resize a photo from within Vista without downloading software.
What Windows Vista needs is the “Resize Image” powertoy that is available for XP. There isn´t an easier and faster way to resize images. And I *REALLY* miss it.
I was just looking at Live Photo Gallery (the much improved replacement for Windows Photo Gallery) and found that you can’t resize the image while your viewing the photo but when you go to the actual gallery (looking at the thumbnails) it has a RESIZE feature. In fact, it looks like you can batch resize them by selecting multiple files.
It IS dumb that the original Photo Gallery can’t do this but Live Photo Gallery shouldn’t be thought of as a third party app. It’s more like a “Vista Update”. It’s what Photo Gallery should have been in the first place and I think it should have been released as an update and just replaced Windows Photo Gallery altogether.
The photo importer in Live Photo Gallery is also FAR better than the over-simplified original version.
Plus Publishing services like Flickr are integrated. They may have had issues with the whole “liscening software fair trade european thing you can’t go spamming your platform with your own software” thing, “you have to give other developers a fair go”.
Which is stupid. Isn’t there a Windows Media Player-less version of every Vista distro for EU? Honestly.
Windows Live Photo Gallery is the updated version of Windows Photo Gallery and it has a option to resize fotos:
Resize photos in Windows Live Photo Gallery
Sometimes you need a smaller copy of a photo for a project. For example, if you want to sell something on Windows Live Expo and your photo file is larger than 8 megabytes (MB), you need to make it smaller. If you’re creating a website, you might want to use photos that are small in size so pages load faster. Resizing your photos in Windows Live Photo Gallery is a snap.
Note: Keep in mind that resizing is different from cropping. Resizing changes the resolution of an entire photo, while cropping makes a photo smaller by removing part of it.
To resize a photo
1. Select the photo you want to resize, and then, on the File menu, click Resize.
2. In the Resize dialog box, select the size you want to make the photo.
If you want to be able to print the photo, choose a larger size. If you’re only going to view the photo on the screen, choose a size that looks good on your monitor. Experiment with different sizes to learn which will work best for your project. Keep in mind that Maximum dimensions is the number of pixels along the longest side of your photo. For example, in a 4 × 6 photo, if the 6-inch side is 1024 pixels, the 4-inch side is 682.
Resizing options
3. Click Resize and Save.
Photo Gallery will save the resized file in the same location as the original, and will add the dimensions to the file name of the smaller copy. For example, if the original photo is named “Scooter” and is saved in your Pictures folder, the resized photo is named “Scooter (1024×683)” and is also in the Pictures folder. (If you want to change the file name or location, click Browse, change the name and location, and then click Resize and Save.)
To resize a photo to send in e‑mail
1. Select the photo you want to send, and then click E‑mail.
2. Select a size, and then click Attach. Make sure that the Total estimated size is less than 2 MB.
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/f6a5acf9-8661-4f2a-b5f2-9680772e02601033.mspx
Why o why isn’t there an image resizer in Vista like the XP PowerToy. this powertoy is perhaps the simplest most efficient way to resize an image I have ever seen. You can resize a single image or a batch in two clicks!!!
Just to pile on ;)
Windows Live Photo Gallery is an upgrade to Windows Photo Gallery and is available without requiring a new version of Windows. The entire Windows Live set of applications can be downloaded here: http://download.live.com and are all upgrades to existing Windows Vista applications. We just released a new beta a few days ago too and Photo Gallery is even better!
Yep …on the mean time I will open a photo in Ubuntu with gthumb, where I can crop / resize / enhance / transform / remove red eye / set Wallpaper .etc.
No need to go to Ubuntu / Red Hat / Novel Live website to do a simple task.
No need to open other paint software to do a simple task.
….anyway, this is not the point – the point is I can read excel / word / power point files with just a clean Ubuntu install.
the rest is just theory.
@Tom
Open an image in Microsoft Paint.
Click on Image –> Resize/Skew or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+W
Choose a percentage you wish to resize to and you’re done.
Please amend the clarity of your comment.
I they have implemented it, then nobody could argue about Vista. Moreover, we then probably could have seen some that would start bubbling about MSFT trying to “gorge” some bits from graphics editing industry pie. Today, when Windows even can’t resize images, everybody has it’s own field to grow high.
Ah, that’s part of a new strategy MinWin. Have you tried shrinking the image? That’s why we have MATLAB whatsoever.
How about smth. like
imresize(imread(’myimage.tif’),0.5,’lanczos3′);
figure(1), imshow(ans,’InitialMagnification’, 100);
To tell the truth, I believe MSFT has moved all the graphics team to Expression or something to be planned as Microsoft Office Picture Manager is yet another ‘animal’ that goes funky almost every time you want to do a simple editing/viewing. If the new Excel / Word are really fantastic, then Picture Manager just makes you feel nostalgic about the brilliant Photo Editor we had had before.
Hi folks. I read that there is a distinction between cropping the size ie. “resizing” and resizing the file size, which is really what we need . I dont want to email photos. I want to reduce the file size right on my desktop so that I can upload them to wherever. I’m not interested in opening up my email and emailing them anywhere. In that case I would reduce the file size for that. But Im only wanting to be able to reduce the weight of the file. not reduce the size percentage/crop in paint. Get it? I want freedom to reduce the file size/weight so that I can upload directly from my desktop. Otherwise, I have to email them all to myself so that I can retrieve the photo from my email and then put it on my desktop and then upload it. That is way too much. What do you suggest?
Thanks.
I just ran across this problem myself. Unbelievable!! I need to shrink my files in order to upload them to Robert Half’s website so they can find me a job. I have hated Vista ever since I bought my computer and was told I could no longer get XP on it. The ironic part is that I wanted to buy the computer 2 weeks earlier (at that time last spring, XP was still an option) but my boyfriend made me wait and by the time I made the purchase I could only get Vista! It’s true, the early bird gets the better operating system.
Can anyone recommend a program to shrink these jpeg’s to 480 pixels wide and 300 pixels high? Thanks.