Oftentimes the clients that we deal with at Three Stream are small to medium sized businesses, and are not too enthusiastic about dropping $600 for Adobe Photoshop.  Never fear, business owner!  You too can have the power to easily compress quality images to a size that will make your website load faster – before your customer moves on to somewhere else.  Here is my recommendation on a free way to save your images for the web.

Introducing… drum roll please… Web Resizer  http://www.webresizer.com

So here is all you have to do:

1. Go to http://www.webresizer.com
2. Click the button marked “Resize Photo Now”
3. Browse to find the image on your computer and upload it
4. Make your changes (crop, resize, etc.) and click “Apply Changes”
5. Download the image to your computer

Among the optimization features for this web app are cropping, image enhancement, resizing, rotating, and adding borders.  There are also great help features that tell you what each option does.  You can even make images black and white (for all you purists out there).

Now you might be wondering… what happens to my images?  Who are these people who own the program? Do they now have a copy of my image?  According to them, they are photographers who created the tool for their clients who want to update their own websites.  The web app temporarily takes your images for a 60 minute session, and then deletes it off their server, never to be shared or distributed except by you.

1. Decide where you’ll search.
By default, your computer’s browser already uses one search engine or another. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, AOL, Lycos, HotBot…there are tons, and chances are, your computer uses only one unless you tell it something different. The problem is that each engine returns very different results based on its own preferences, so you could search all day on one and get nowhere, while searching on another could produce results in 30 seconds. So try them all. An impressive list of Search Engines can help.

2. Be Specific
Usually when searching, we tend to enter one word that returns 4 billion results. Ok, so not 4 billion, but honestly, with “camp” returning a quarter-of-a-billion results, it takes 6 pages before you hit a camp equipment retailer. Granted, most people look for specific names and details, but honestly, those same people give up if their desired results aren’t on the first page. The solution? Be specific. Use many words, and employ synonyms if needed. Include locations, numbers, associated names. And here’s yet another useful list, full of search operators to help specify your search.

3. Check for Relevant Material
Sometimes searches return long lists and pages of solid text…no one wants to read those. First, search your page (EDIT>Find or CTRL+F) and find what you’ve been searching for. Next, look around and see if there are any similar words/phrases/ideas you can use in your next search to help limit your results. Basically this is just being more specific, but so few people take the time to find different ways of saying something to help their searching. If I made all the websites in the world, obviously they would be structured the same with the same set of keywords. Sadly (and luckily) the web is full of various designers from all over the world. Each uses different language and terms, so find alternate terms for your search. It may open up a new realm of possibilities.

4. Be Patient
“If it’s not on the first page of Google, I don’t want it…” Hopefully this isn’t you. Those first returns are usually pretty good, though most of the first page is full of ads. If you are specific enough, you should have sorted through the massive jumble, but still, take the time to do serious research. For instance, if I search for airline deals, I will get the usual ads and 30 pages of stuff. But the site I like doesn’t even show up in the first 10 pages most of the time. So I keep looking.
Side note: If you are looking for a deal on anything, be patient. And sign up with reputable companies to receive notice of their sales. I get notice from a kitchenware company, book sellers, electronic stores, and some cheap secondhand stores. Chances are, they will have what you want, and you will receive first notice. But take the time. Don’t settle for the first search result unless it is amazing. Keep looking. Chances are, someone has it for cheaper.

5. Bookmark
When you find something (especially if it takes forever to find), bookmark it. It does no good to spend some time, find it, and then be unable to find it the next time. Too often I stumble upon sites for fonts or design examples, cheap deals, free stuff, and then I can’t get back to them again. Just bookmark the page. It really doesn’t take too much effort, and you can find again. Decided you don’t want to return? Delete it from your list. No worries.

I know these are all common sense. But we seem to need reminding from time to time. Remember: if you search hard enough and long enough, you can find just about everything. And with a little work, hopefully hard enough and long enough really won’t be that hard or long.

1. Click this link to go to the download page for Primo PDF
   
2. Download and run the file
3. Go through the setup wizard
4. After setting up Primo PDF on your PC, you may now choose Primo PDF as one of your printer options when you go to print a document.

Next time you send a word doc via email, especially on your company letterhead, use a PDF format to make it look more professional.