Turning a photo into a thumbnail

Turning a photo into a thumbnail

A Thumbnail is a small image representation of a much larger image. If you have a thumbnail you should also have a main or source image for the thumbnail to represent. They are of the same image content but only differ in size.

Creating a thumbnail is not that hard. You only need an image or photo, resize it to make it smaller, save it to a new filename, and then you have your thumbnail. You can use several photo editing software just like Adobe Photoshop. Here’s how you can make a thumbnail using Adobe Photoshop 7.0:

1. Launch Adobe Photoshop. Load an image or photo by clicking File > Open. Browse and choose an image then hit the Open button.
2. On the menu above, click Image > Image Size.
3. Under Pixel Dimensions, the Width and Height properties of the image is represented in pixels. Change the indicated amount in the Width, make it a little smaller. Then click OK afterwards. You will notice the image that is loaded also decreased in size.
4. Click File > Save As.
5. Type the new name of the thumbnail then hit Enter.

There you have it, an instant thumbnail. Preview it in the Windows Explorer. You can resize the image to your desired smallness.

There are institutions that recommend the desired image size for creating thumbnails. The Denver Public Library Digitization and Cataloguing Program produced 160pixels thumbnails in the long dimension. The California Digital Library Guidelines for Digital Images recommends 150x200pixels. Picture Australia requires 150pixels thumbnails in the long dimension. The International Dunhuang Project Standards for Digitization and Image Management specifies a height of 96pixels at 72 ppi (Pixels per inch). DeviantArt automatically produces 150pixels maximum in the long dimension.