Resize Your Photos

GIMP allows you to save your photos in difference size & quality. Keep in mind that if you reduce the size of your photos, the quality of your photos will be lost. It is advisable to save your photos in the original size to maintain the quality. Always use Save Copy As for your resized copy.

Scale Image – Resize Your Photos

Go to Image > Scale Image to open up the Scale Image dialog. In this dialog, you can specify desired width & height in pixel, inches or percentage. In many case, only pixel or percentage is used. By default, the aspect ratio of your photos will be maintained. There is a button beside the width & height textbox. Uncheck it only if you want to specify both the width & height of the photos.

Also, you can choose which type of resize method to use, that is in the Interpolation drop down list. This is important as it effects the quality of the photos. It is recommended to use only two type of methods, Cubic or Sinc (Lanczos 3). Apparently, Cubic is the best method fits for most photos & “Sinc (Lanczos 3)” will provides better results if your photos contains lots of text.

Canvas Size – Change The Visible Area

In GIMP the visible area of the photo is called Canvas. Do not confuse with “Scale Image”. The Canvas Size dialog allows you to make the canvas size bigger or smaller. You can access this dialog through Image > Canvas Size

In this dialog you can you can specify the Width & Height, the size of the canvas you want to change. You may then specify the position of the original image, using Offset. Click & drag the image to position it or click the center button to make the photo stay at the center of the canvas.

Changing the Canvas size is useful for example when we want to make border to the photo. Also, it is useful when we want to crop the photo at certain fixed size.