Resize an Image to Exact Pixels

Keep proportions or exact size?

Keep proportions is right almost every time. A 4000 by 3000 photo resized to 1200 pixels wide becomes 1200 by 900, with nothing squashed.

Use an exact size only when the shape already matches, or when a form insists on fixed dimensions. If you need a square from a rectangular photo, crop it to 1:1 first and then resize it; otherwise faces and objects will look stretched.

Common sizes

Platforms change their recommendations from time to time, but these widths are widely used:

• Email and chat attachments: 1200 to 1600 pixels wide is plenty for viewing on any screen
• Website content images: 1200 to 2000 pixels wide, depending on your layout
• Profile pictures: 400 to 800 pixels square
• Instagram posts: 1080 pixels wide (1080 by 1080 square or 1080 by 1350 portrait)
• Online application photos: check the form, which often asks for a size such as 200 by 230 pixels

Making images smaller is safe, making them bigger is not

Reducing the size keeps the image sharp, and also reduces the file size, often dramatically. Enlarging a small image cannot add detail that was never captured, so the result looks soft or blurry. If you need a large image, start from the largest original you have.

Pixels, file size, and print size

Pixels describe how much detail the image holds. File size depends on the pixels and on compression, so after resizing, Compress Image can shrink the file further. For printing, a common rule is 300 pixels per inch: a 6 by 4 inch print needs about 1800 by 1200 pixels.