A question that we get asked all the time is "How do I get my images ready for homepage slideshow". It doesn't take too long, but there are a few tips:
- The images that we use as a "standard" are 1191 pixels wide by 424 pixels high.
- All images you upload must be EXACTLY the same size
- It's ok to downsize images, definitely not ok to upsize images - they become blurry and pixelated
Now that's out of the way, let's take a look at how we might grab a few different images and get them ready to upload to the gallery.
Image Editing Software
There is a heap of image editors on the market, from Photoshop to Paint.Net to Microsoft Paint, and most of them will be suitable for what we need to do in these instructions.
For this example, I'm going to use a completely free browser-based solution provided by Autodesk. It's called Pixlr and the site can be found here.
You need to signup for a free account, it's quick and easy to do so. One thing that's nice about this solution is that it's free and you don't need to install anything to use it.
Finding my source images
The gallery will only be as good as the source images, so it's important to get nice quality images from the beginning. You can source these online, purchase them through the many stock photography sites or even have professional shots done for you.
Important Note: Using images found on the web without permission i.e you didn't take or create them, can be an infringement of copyright. It's important to get permission to use these images before uploading.
Ok, I've got my awesome images, now what?
1. Decide on the size you'd like your images to be. As mentioned above 1191 x 424 is the standard we use, but by no means is it the rule. If you decide to upload images that are half as high i.e. 200 pixels, this will work fine, just ensure they are all exactly the same size. The rest of the homepage content will shift up (or down) as required.
2. I've decided to make my images the 1190 x 400 for this example. I will load my image editor
2. I'm going to create a new image based on the pixel size I want for all my images. In this case 1190 x 400 pixels
3. Now I'm going to open up the other original images in Pixlr as well
4. I'm going to resize all my original images to be the same width as my gallery size (1190).
5. In Pixlr I can do this by going to image > image size
6. I then select the width to be 1190 and leave constrain proportions ticked
7. Do this for all your original images
8. Now I want to Edit > Select All on my resized image and then Edit > Copy to my clipboard
9. Now select my originally created blank image and Edit > Paste
10. As you can see in the screenshot below, I may need to adjust the image location. I can do this by selecting the Move tool and clicking and dragging the image around
11. Now we want to save the image. Click File > Save Image and enter the name in the dialogue box. Click OK
12. Do this for all the remaining images and upload them to the gallery using this handy article