Resizing Images with pixlr.com Express

Overview

Why Resize Images?

It’s good idea to resize your images before uploading them for a few reasons:

  1. Large images make your pages load slowly, and nobody likes that.
  2. Most images above 500 pixels (px) wide will be cut off for many of our users.
  3. The CommonSpot image editor is slow and clunky.

Why Use Express?

There are many ways to resize images on a computer, but not everyone in the City has the same software, or the same permissions for installing software, on their machines.

This means that we have to find something that’s free and accessible to everyone. As far as we know every contributor has a web browser with Flash installed on it.

Express is fast, relatively easy to use, and doesn’t require that you create an account.

What Size Should They Be?

This depends on the layout you are using. Remember that the website resizes based on browser size, so maximum-width images might be cut off for some users.

General Images

Image sizes, assuming page has a left navigation.

Column Size

Maximum Image Width

Safe Image Width

100% of the page

645px

500px

66% of the page

430px
338px

50% of the page

312px
242px

33% of the page

200px
158px

Banner Images

Banner images should be 905px wide and 162px tall.