How do I make a pic smaller?

[Shadowann2]

I have a photo I'm trying to use as my AV and I just can't seem to make it smaller than 17 KB. As it is it's so tiny that you can't even tell what it is...how do I make the file smaller without loosing the pic?

 

[great lover]

I have a photo I'm trying to use as my AV and I just can't seem to make it smaller than 17 KB. As it is it's so tiny that you can't even tell what it is...how do I make the file smaller without loosing the pic?

I have Gimp and I can help you do this.

 

[SweetErika]

What photo editing program are you using, Ann?

You need to change the dimensions of the original to 150 pixels on the largest side, and then lower the quality of the image when you save it, which you can do with a free image editor like Irfanview, Gimp, or paid software you have, like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. In the Save As option, there's usually a slider that allows you to lower the image quality so that the image is small enough to meet Lit's requirements.

 

[Weird Harold]

As it is it's so tiny that you can't even tell what it is...how do I make the file smaller without loosing the pic?

The file format makes a BIG difference -- what you're describing often turns out to be someone trying to use a BMP format or an animated GIF image as an avatar.

A BMP format image has to be 32x32 pixels or smaller, (depending on the color depth,) to get under 17KB.

An animated GIF with more than about three frames simply isn't ever going to meet the 17KB limit at any resonable pixel dimension until the frame count is reduced.

The best way to meet the 17KB limit is to save the image in JPeG format where you can adjust the "image quality" (aka compression ratio) without having to change the image dimensions smaller than 150x150.