There was a very long list of things wrong with my site when I very first started blogging. Back then (3.5 years ago and yes that was long enough ago) there just weren’t any resources out there. SBS didn’t exist, I had no blogging friends, I only started this whole thing to write and was baffled at how I could make my site prettier.
Fast forward 3.5 years and I’m now very comfortable at simple HTML, Photoshop, editing and so on. One of the things I tried to figure out quickly once I discovered other blogs even existed was how to get all my photos the same width. My biggest pet peeve is reading a blog with varying sizes of photos. It’s a simple switch and something I highly recommend to EVERY blogger. Here’s how…
Step 1. Figure out the width you want your photos to be. Mine are all 600px wide and I figured this out with a little trial and error. Figure out what works for your site and what look you’re going for.
Step 2. Upload your photos from your camera – or download photos from the web. If downloading photos from the web, you’ll want to find photos that are hi-res, or the largest possible so you can edit without any distortion.
Step 3. Load your photos into a photo editing program. I use any of the following depending on what I’m doing: Photoshop, iPhoto or Pixlr.
Step 4. Select resize – this is available on all of the above mentioned programs. *If you’re using iPhoto you’ll hit export in the toolbar and resize it there. I select custom, then adjust by width.
Step 5. Set your photo to your desired width and have it automatically keep proportions. Note that you should be going from a LARGER image to a smaller one. Vice versa will distort your photos; I’ve noticed I can get away with increasing up to 100px without it getting too badly distorted and this is solely for photos that are not mine.
Step 6. Load your photos to Blogger or WordPress. Select the original size so that it reads your photos as you’ve sized and loaded them.
That’s all it takes to have all your photos the same width on your blog for a more aesthetically pleasing blog layout.
Have any other Blogger Q&As? Let me know in the comments below or shoot me an email so I can get it answered in the next volume!
