Resize Photos

When you resize a photo in Picasa, you're creating a new copy with an adjusted image resolution (pixel count) and with all photo edits applied. The original photo on your hard drive is never altered.

You can reduce picture size in Picasa by exporting.

Resize by exporting

Exporting lets you change photo size while controlling the JPEG compression (image quality) introduced by your applied photo edits. The result is newly resized copies of your photos, saved to your hard drive. During the export process (also explained in the Picasa Help Center page) you can adjust both the "Image Size Options" and the "Image Quality" settings in the "Export to Folder" screen.

- Selecting an image or images
- Click the "Export" button
  - If you don't see the Export button, see https://sites.google.com/site/picasaresources/Home/Picasa-FAQ/picasa/how-to/how-to-install-customized-buttons-in-picasa3
- In "Name of exported folder," you can leave the default name or type something such as the word "smaller" or "export"
  - When typing "smaller" or "export" you can more easily see later where the exported photos ended up. Using the default name might be confusing later.
- In the "Export to folder" window, click "Resize to" then either type in a pixel number or adjust the size slider.
  - The number of pixels you select determines the length or height of your photo (whichever is longer).
  - The other dimension is determined automatically to maintain the aspect ratio of the photo.

Leave "image quality" at Automatic (see below for more options)
Click "Export"
Go to File Explorer (in Windows) to your default Downloads folder and look for the "smaller" folder
- Open each photo and be sure the quality and size is to your liking
- Note that now you will have the original larger photos on your computer as well as the resized photos.
- It's up to you if you want to keep the original larger photos

Other "Image Quality" options are in the drop-down menu. Test each one to see what works best for you:

Automatic: Preserves the original image quality
Normal: Balances quality and size
Maximum: Preserves fine detail for large file sizes
Minimum: Yields some quality loss for small file sizes
Custom: Lets you to select your own value

During export, you can also choose whether to add a watermark:

Check-mark the "Watermark" box