Getting your photos the right size for your blog can be a challenge. One of the last things we want is to have blurry photos due to them being the wrong size and having to be stretched to fill the space. A photo that is obviously sized incorrectly will keep me from even wanting to look at a blog post. I’m sure others feel the same. Or, maybe I’m just super particular … I suppose I am! So, today I’ll go over sizing both in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Let’s first talk about size preference and consistency. I like to keep my photos the same size in whatever orientation they are. I will vary from that once in awhile if the photo calls for it. My goal though is to photograph subjects in such a way that they will fit into the size I like. I crop most of my photos to 7 x 5 or 5 x 7 all depending on the orientation. On your personal page on Instagram your photos, as you know display as square, but on the home feed they display as the full image, as long as you have it sized correctly. In pixels, you’ll want your photo to be 1080 on the short side.

All the different social media pages have different sizes and they change from time to time. You’ll want to know which is the best size for each account you have and then decide how you want to size your photos.

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We’ll start the resizing with Lightroom. Once you have completed your editing, right click on your photo and when the pop up opens, place your mouse over Export and scroll to Export and click. The export window opens. Select your location where you want your file to go. Scroll down to Image Sizing. I save two copies of my images … one larger version and one for posting on Instagram.

• Put a checkmark in the Resize to Fit box and in the dropdown select Short Edge
• Below that in the same section you can select pixels, inches or centimeters. For the larger photos, I select inches and then to the left fill in the number of inches I want my photo to be.
• For the smaller photos to post on Instagram, I select pixels and fill in 1080.
• I keep the resolution at 300 pixels per inch.
• Then export

In Photoshop, on the menu at the top:

• First, I crop my image to the dimensions I want, then save
• To resize it as a smaller image for Instagram
  • Select Image and then Image Size
  • In the window, first, make sure your resolution is at 300 Pixels/Inch
  • Change the short edge first to 1080 and the longer edge will automatically change (or whatever size you choose)
  • Then click Okay

Thanks for stopping!