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How to resize a digital photograph using XnView MP software

=== by Bob Sutherland ===

A lesson on how to resize a digital photograph using XnView MP software by XnSoft for Windows, Macintosh and Linux computers.

XnView MP is just one of many programs this computer programmer has created for smart phones, tablets and computers to do various photo editing tasks such as resize photographs. If you have a smart phone or tablet I would suggest you visit the following website to find the software available to resize photographs for your mobile device.
https://www.xnview.com/en/

The following are screenshot images I captured of my Macintosh computer screen as I worked through the process of resizing a digital photograph. I do not currently have a Windows or Linux computer but I expect the program will look and behave the same on those operating systems.

XnView MP application icon
This is what the XnView MP application icon looks like on my Macintosh computer.

The first step is to start up the XnView MP application and open a file that contains a photograph. There are many different ways you can accomplish this task.

On a Macintosh computer you may find the XnViewMP.app icon in the Dock at the bottom or side of your screen. You should find the XnViewMP.app among all your application icons displayed by the Launchpad. Alternatively you can look for the XnView MP program in the Applications folder on your hard disk.

Linux and Windows users should follow their normal routine for finding and starting the XnView MP application.

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This is the Browser window I saw after starting up the XnView MP program. This window allowed me to search through all of the folders and files on my computer. I found and opened the photograph I want to resize.

An alternative method would be to go up to the XnView application menu I can see along the top edge of my screen. In the File menu there is the Open command to open image files.

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Here is my photograph that I want to resize. It is a picture of the backyard behind an old house.
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In the View menu at the top of the screen there are lots of different options listed that will allow me to Zoom or Fit image to window. These are temporary solutions that will change the size of my photograph on the screen but they are not the permanent change of resizing my photograph's dimensions that I want to achieve in this lesson. Below the bottom right corner of my photograph you can see that it is currently being displayed at 20% of its full size.
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In the Image menu at the top of the screen I found two commands: Resize and Canvas resize.
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Here is the Canvas resize window. Seeing that box of 9 squares in a 3 by 3 grid alerts me that this is a method to crop images to precise pixel measurements. That is not what I want to do in this lesson so I mouse clicked on the Cancel button.
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Here is the Resize window. Notice that there is a checkmark in front of Keep ratio. That is a hint that we have found the right command and window to proportionally resize our photograph smaller without changing its shape.
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When doing some research I found that 1024 pixels along the longest edge is often recommended as a good size for photographs that will be displayed on computer screens or the Internet. ( Computers love photograph dimensions that are multiples of eight. 1024 = 8 x 8 x 8 x 2 )

Since Width is the longest side I have changed it to 1024 pixels. The XnXiew MP application automatically changes the Height measurement.

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Here is my resized photograph. Nothing appears to have changed other than the pixel dimensions below the left side of the photograph.
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The final step of this lesson is to save our resized photograph with a new filename so that it does not erase the original file. In the File menu there appears to be a few different options I can try including Save As and Export.
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Here is the window that is displayed by File menu > Save as. The file type is JPEG.
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Here is the window that is displayed by File menu > Save as. I have changed the file type to TIFF.
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Here is the window that is displayed by File menu > Export. You can see the options that are available when saving a JPEG file.
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Here is the window that is displayed by File menu > Export. You can see the options that are available when saving a TIFF file.
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When I mouse clicked the Export button this Save File window appeared on my screen. Here I am changing the filename by adding the number 1024 before saving my resized photograph. I am also selecting a folder location on my computer for my new resized photograph file.
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After saving I found myself back on this screen looking at my resized photograph. I decided to try mouse clicking on that Browser tab directly above the top centre of my photograph.
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Here is the XnView MP browser. I can see my original photograph file and the new resized photograph file I created in this lesson.