badloResize, Crop or Compress: Which Do You Need?
Updated
All three can make a picture smaller, so they're easy to mix up. But each changes something different, and using the wrong one can give you a stretched or blurry photo.
The difference at a glance
Which should you use?
- Unwanted things in the picture? Crop.
- A site asks for exact pixels? Resize.
- A site limits KB or MB? Compress, and resize as well if that isn't enough.
- A photo loads slowly on your website? Resize it to the size it's shown at, and then compress.
- Wrong shape, but you need the whole photo? For Instagram, use Instagram Fit.
The best order
Crop first, then resize, and compress last. Compressing removes some detail, so doing it last means that you only do it once. Saving a JPG over and over gradually lowers its quality, so always keep your original and work from a copy.
What about making an image bigger?
Resizing up works, but it can't add detail that wasn't captured, so the picture gets softer. Upscale Image helps by smoothing and sharpening, though it won't turn a tiny photo into a sharp poster. Start with the largest version you can find.