Welcome to part 3 of the blog collage series of tutorials…if you haven’t read the first two parts, you can see them by clicking below:

• Creating a Template
• Creating and Using Actions

So, first can I rant for a minute? I HATE nothing more than to go to a site or blog, then sit there for 20 minutes while the images load…optimize people! Optimizing file size is really quite simple, and adds just one small step to your workflow (maybe two depending on the final size of your image). In order to dispell the notion that you might lose image quality by reducing file size (as long as it’s done correctly), I’m going to show below two images, one before and one after – both are the same size (600 x 900 px), but one is optimized for file size…betcha can’t see a difference!

Before

After

So any guesses on what the difference in file size is for these two identical images? The “Before” images weighs in at nearly 550 KB, while the “After” is a measly 150 KB!

So, how does one achieve this modern day marvel? First, determine how wide (in pixels) your images are on your blog. There is absolutely no reason to upload images that are larger than the blog will allow. If you do, you are letting some tree full of internet elves resize your pictures for you…and trust me, they don’t care what your file size is, and the result will most definitely be sub-optimal. There are several ways of determining the width of the images on your blog, but the easiest is to take a screen shot of your blog, paste it into a new photoshop document, and crop it down to a horizontal image in your screenshot. Once you’ve cropped your image, just press Cmd+Alt+I (Ctrl+Alt+I on a PC). The width and height will be displayed at the top of the dialogue box that opens. The most important number to note is the width. Any image you upload with a width greater than the maximum allowed by your blog will be resized by gypsies. Don’t let it happen! From this day forth, you will resize your blog images to that maximum width.

Now for the final step – optimizing file size – the step that will win you awards in heaven and earth (OK, maybe not, but it will make you way cooler than everybody who skips this step). Once you have your image resized, click File>Save for Web and Devices. A dialogue box will open with several options. All you need to do is select the preset “JPEG High” then click Save. Ta da…you’ve just saved all your fans precious moments of their lives waiting for your images to load…and maybe even saved their souls from the devil by preventing the foul words that might have spewed from their mouths while waiting to view your masterpieces.

Now if you’re real smart, you’ll create an action that will do all this for you…play around with the information you learned in the last tutorial to save yourself a little time in this area as well!