If you’re dealing with digital images on a regular basis, you probably know by now that image resizing is an important phase of the editing process. Reducing the size of our photos helps our websites and blogs load faster, which enables us to provide a pleasant user viewing experience. It also help us adequately prepare photos for social media use and online sharing, as well as save considerable hard drive space.
If you’re looking for a proper tool to resize images on Windows, then this post is definitely for you. Below you can find a list of 10 Windows apps you can reliably put to use to make your images smaller.
Photos
Our first proposal is none other than the native Photos app. The tool comes standard with Windows 10 and gives you the opportunity to resize your pictures in a simple manner. Here’s how you can do it:
Open the image in the app and click on the three dots located in top right corner of the interface, which stand for the More Options button. Next simply click on Resize and select the desired size for your new image:
Best for profile pictures and thumbnails (0.25 MP), Best for emails and messages (2 MP) or Best for viewing (4 MP). Additionally there’s a fourth option available which allows you to manually enter the preferred values for width and height.
Photos can also crop and rotate photos, apply artistic effects or make image adjustments. Unfortunately it can’t process multiple files at once, which is a letdown if you’re working with dozens of images that require resizing.
BatchPhoto
BatchPhoto is a PC tool designed to resize photos in bulk. This editor is powerful enough to process hundreds of pictures at the same time and is quite easy to use thanks to its three-step wizard concept. All you have to do is drag and drop your photos, make the necessary edits in the second step and select the image format and destination folder in the last step.
BatchPhoto allows you to adjust the size of your images using either pixels or percentage. Just select the Resize filter and then type in the preferred values for the width and/or height. The tool also places at your disposal an advanced option, which allows you to adjust the document size and DPI resolution. If you want to go deeper, you have plenty of features to choose from: you can convert (includes extensive RAW support), crop, rotate, watermark or date stamp photos, as well as apply special effects and make numerous image adjustments.
To boost your productivity, BatchPhoto enables you to save your current Settings as Profiles and load them in future editing sessions.
PhotoSize
If you need to reduce the size of your images, but don’t want to install a software on your PC, keep on reading. PhotoSize is an online tool designed to help you make your photos smaller in a simple and effective way.
In order to accomplish your task, just add your files (you can select multiple files at the same time) and select the Resize filter available in the second step of the process. Now you have two options at your disposal: you can either choose from the numerous preset sizes (from VGA to HD and Full HD) or manually enter the desired dimensions for the width and/or height.
PhotoSize offers other useful features as well, such as the possibility to crop and rotate images, adjust the contrast, brightness or saturation or add artistic effects such as black and white, sepia or charcoal.
ACDSee Photo Studio
ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate is a complex photo editing software that provides batch processing capabilities. In order to resize multiple images at once, you have to enter the Manage mode. The next step is to select your images and then go to Tools > Batch >Resize. In the new dialog box you can choose how to resize your pictures: to a percentage of their original size, to a certain size expressed in pixels or to specific print dimensions.
ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate is designed for professional editing and hence comes with numerous features to help you create unique images and graphics. This all-in-one program places at your disposal all the options you need: from properly sorting, moving and organizing your photography to adjustment layers, a powerful RAW editor and tons of filters and tools to improve your workflow. The downside is that, if you’re not used to working in such a software, you may find it a bit overwhelming.
Fotosizer
Fotosizer is a Windows tool designed specifically to reduce photo size. The app is relatively easy to use and this is due to the straightforward interface divided in two: on the left side you have your images, while on the right side – the available features. Fotosizer stands out through its multiple resizing modes: by manually setting new dimensions for width and/or height, by choosing from a wide range of presets, by resizing only one side of the photo or by adding padding and making all images the same size.
Besides bulk resizing, the tool gives you the chance to further optimize your pictures. For that purpose you can rename, crop, flip and rotate them, as well as add a text or logo watermark. You can also make various color adjustments and apply special effects like polaroid, vintage or vignette. To help you speed up your workflow, Fotosizer comes with a useful feature to save your settings into profiles and load them later with ease.
Light Image Resizer
Light Image Resizer is another Windows app you can use to change the size of your photos. This tool offers multiple methods to resize photos. You can select from a list of preset profiles or create your own profile, you can enter the new values for width and/or height in pixels, percentage, inches or centimeters or you can choose one of the available modes: Fit, Stretch, Center, Crop or Extend to Square (created for Instagram).
Light Image Resizer is far from being a basic image resizer app. The program boasts multiple features to help you optimize and improve the appearance of your pictures. This includes options to rename, compress, convert or watermark images, create PDF’s from a set of pictures, create animated GIF’s, remove the background or create collages from photos.
FILEminimizer Pictures
FILEminimizer Pictures is a program developed to help you considerably reduce the size of your photos. With this tool you can compress your images by up to 98%, which means you can shrink a 12.5 MB file to only 0.25 MB and hence gain major disk space. FILEminimizer Pictures comes with four compression levels: strong, standard, low and a last level that enables you to customize the compression according to your preferences.
In order to compress your images you don’t really have to do much. All that’s required is to load your files into the program, select one of the four compression options and click on the Optimize Files button. On the negative side, this is the only operation you can perform. There are no other features to further improve your photos. Also, if you care about the visual component, the outdated design might not meet your requirements.
FastStone Photo Resizer
FastStone Photo Resizer is an alternative to consider if you can get past the quirky interface. The Resize option is not directly available on the main dashboard; in order to reach it you have to click on the Advanced Options button and select Resize. Once you get here you have a couple of resizing options: you can pick from a preset standard size, resize based on one side or you can manually enter the desired dimensions in pixels, percentage or print size.
The good thing is that there are other features to help you optimize your photos. The program allows you to batch rename, convert, rotate or crop pictures, to change the color depth, change the DPI, adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation or sharpness. To protect or promote your photos you can insert a text or logo watermark.
Image Resizer
Image Resizer by Tweaking Technologies comes with a modern interface, which makes it more appealing from a visual standpoint in comparison to other tools. There are three simple steps you need to follow in order to make pictures smaller: select your files in the first stage, choose your resize settings and last your output settings. Everything is clear, with all the buttons and options in the right place.
Image Resizer is designed with a couple of resizing options. You can select from various predefined dimensions (1920×1080 is the highest available) or you can customize the width and/or height using pixels or percentage. In the same phase you can flip your photos or correct their orientation. In the last step you can choose to keep the original file format or convert to a different one, as well as do some basic renaming.
Photo Resizer
Photo Resizer gives you the possibility to optimize images individually or in bulk. The app is intuitively designed and comes with a main window that offers a side by side comparison of the original and modified image. There are three main options available: crop, resize and compress.
You can crop photos manually or based on preset aspect ratios and resize them by adjusting the dimensions using pixels or percentage. The compression feature doesn’t offer any settings or adjustments whatsoever. On the negative side, if you decide to remove some of the files loaded, you can’t do it. You’ll have to remove all of them. Also it’s worth mentioning that the app is supported by ads.
