How to resize images for web use using Blogstomp

Dpi. 2048 on the long edge. 5mgb. Compression. 72ppi. 300ppi. Pixels. Inches. Conversions. ARGH!!! 

Does all of this sound familiar and kind of make you want to pull your hair out? Resizing images without compromising quality for online use and balancing the fact that those same images could be taken off the web and reproduced has been a struggle for photographers ever since digital was introduced. 

First things first...if you are more visual and like to SEE things being done as opposed to reading about them, skip by the text and there is a handy video down at the bottom that goes over everything in this post!

The issue

There is a TON of information floating around the internet and photography forums on how to size images properly for not only your clients, but also for print and then also for web. Because the subject can be rather complicated (and by complicated I mean seriously almost impossible for people to agree on) there is a ton of conflicting information out there and trying to figure out what works best for you can be a STRUGGLE. 

Because of the confusion, I decided on a simple solution that I thought would work best for me without accidentally breaking something. The further research and study that I do, the more I have come to realize WHY my system actually works. I have something planned for the future that I hope will be much more helpful in understanding the complexity of sizing images properly not only for web but also for print, but in the meantime, I want to show you my system of getting my images ready for online use on my blog, facebook, twitter etc!!! 

my system

My system is comprised of two basic steps.

• Exporting full size, high resolution images from Lightroom
• Blogstomp those images to make them more manageable for online use

Bada bing, bada boom. Done. 

What is Blogstomp for?

Blogstomp's main purpose (in my opinion) is twofold.

First, it has the ability to compress (or resize) your images so they don't take up so much disk space on your computer and are easier and quicker to upload onto online platforms. ***You can also do this in Lightroom or PS as well, but I find that instead of exporting out of LR a bunch of times for my various purposes, I just do an export once and then make other changes in Blogstomp. 

Second, you can put images together in collages and blogstomp will easily constrain that collage to the size/dimension you specify in one quick step. In Photoshop or Lightroom, putting together collages can honestly be a HUGE pain. If you have never had to do it before, trust me you are not missing out. 

How does it work?

Blogstomp is a very simple, easy to understand platform that you download on to your computer. 

You simply drag the images you want to "stomp" into the left hand panel and then play around with how you want them to display. 

I typically will only stomp one landscape image at a time OR two vertical (portrait) images next to each other like in the photo below. 

But you can make more involved collages by simply selecting the images you want in the filmstrip. If you don't like the exact way blogstomp has positioned them, you can click "Mix it up" and it will change things around automatically! 

Once you have a design you like all you do is click "Stomp it!" and the image will be saved in your Stomped folder wherever you have designated that folder to live on your hard drive. 

What else can it do?

You have the ability to set "styles" for your stomped images. In those styles you can opt to include a border around the image or between images, you can select dimension size, you can add backgrounds or a watermark as well. There are lots of options!

For example, if you wanted all stomped images for your blog to be 960 on the long edge you can create a style for "blog images" and then use that every time you stomp images for your blog. If you want images that you will post on FB to be 2048 on the long edge AND include your watermark, you can set up a style for that as well. 

You also have the ability to post directly from blogstomp to facebook, twitter or your blog but I haven't done that. I found the system that works best for my workflow so I tend to stick with that, but by all means play around with it to see what might work for you! 

Blogstomp is absolutely one of the best investments I have made for my photography business. The amount of time it has given me back is HUGE. At at mere $49 (one time!) this is something that most photographers should likely invest in especially if they will be sharing images on a blog or social media. 

P.S...Blogstomp has no idea I exist and has not compensated me in any way for talking about them. ;-) 

For a more in depth description of HOW to do all of this, check out the video below!

Easy Peasy OCF for beginners : Part 2

If you haven't read Part 1 of the OCF for Beginners series, I highly suggest you click HERE and take a gander. It will get you familiarized with some basic terminology and an overall understanding of how to work with OCF. 

In part 2, we are going to discuss the settings you can use on your speedlight, how to place that speedlight in relation to what you are shooting and the corresponding results! 

The setup

I decided to use some vases and books in my living room as my subject. Since Paul is out of town and the dogs never sit still, I figured still life was my best bet for these examples. ;-) 

First, here is the image taken with NO FLASH simply using the camera's meter to expose correctly. The room was on the dark side so I opened up my aperture to 2.0, upped my ISO to 800 and this resulted in a 1/8 shutter speed. Yes, you read that right. That is a very slow shutter speed and I am actually shocked that the image doesn't really show any camera shake because I was not using my tripod for this shot. 

Next, I incorporated flash. 

The first set of images are all taken with the speedlight on a stand pointed directly at the subject and diffused with an umbrella. 

I changed my settings to factor in ambient light. My goal was to darken out the ambient in order to make the flash power changes obvious. I closed down my aperture to 5.0 and lowered my ISO to 200. I chose 1/80 simply because it was faster than the lens I was using (a 35mm) and wasn't too fast so my speedlite would sync with no trouble. 

You can see the first image with no flash is essentially black. I then began incorporating the speedlite at stronger and stronger power. I started at the lowest setting (1/128) and then moved up to 1/8. I did not take images for 1/4, 1/2 or 1/1 power simply because the images would have been too bright. Since the flash was not that far away and directed at the subject, it was too much. I could have changed my camera settings to compensate (tighter aperture, slower shutter speed) but the images would look similar to what I already had. 

***Note- all images in this post (with the exception of the last one) have not been edited in any way. They are all SOOC. 

This next set of images, I bounced the light off of the white ceiling. My ceilings are a little on the high side and because of this I was able to pump up the setting all the way to 1/1 power without totally blowing out the images. 

When attempting to figure out how an image was lit, you always want to look at the shadows. When looking at these two sets of images together, you can see how the shadows differ between the two. In the first set the shadows are a bit harsher since the light was directed right at the subject. In the second set the shadows are softer and more evenly distributed since the light was simply coming from the room and not in any one specific direction. 

Since my subject (the vases) were not that far from the background, it may be difficult from these examples to show exactly how to "see" your ambient exposure and flash exposure and how they may differ, but it is a pretty striking example of how different flash powers can affect your image when using the exact same camera settings. 

I wanted to take one last shot that was slightly more dramatic. My goal was to darken the ambient exposure quite a bit more to really showcase the light. For this shot, I closed up my aperture even more to really darken down the ambient light and then directed the light with the umbrella at the subject at 1/32 power. I could have also dialed up the shutter speed to closer to 1/160 to help with the drama. I converted to black and white in post processing to really make the image pop. You can see how the shadows on the side of the vases are much more dramatic in this image and really provides some depth. 

In the next post in the series we will go over my system for using my flashes which will include more information about the equipment I use as well as my thought process when getting everything set up! 

I hope you found this helpful and that using OCF is becoming something that seems intriguing as a result!

Gear used for the photos in this post:

• iPhone 6
• Canon 6d
• 35mm Sigma Art f/1.4
• Yognuo 560iii
• Yognuo 560TX