Using Microsoft Paint to Resize Images

Microsoft Paint is a handy program that most computers come equipped with. If you don't have another photo editing program, Paint will do the necessary basics without much of a learning curve at all.

In order to access the Paint program (Windows PC), go to the Start button on the bottom left of your screen and click on it. Once the screen pops up, you should see a list of all the programs on your computer. Locate "Accessories" on the left side of the screen, when you place your mouse over the word "Accessories", on the right you should be able to see the Paint program (with a little jar of paint brushes beside it). Left click on the icon to open the program.

With the Paint program open, you will see these tabs across the top:

File     Edit     View      Image      Colors       Help

To find a picture on your computer, click on File, scroll down to Open and left click. This will give you a choice of places you might have saved the picture on your computer. For instance, my computer says: My Recent Documents, Desktop, My Documents, My Computer and so on. On my computer, my pictures are in My Documents. Once in that file, I click on My Pictures. Once you've located the picture you want to edit, click on Open and the picture you chose will pop up in Paint.

To change the size of the picture you've opened up in Paint, go across the tabs on the top and click on Image. You will see this:

Flip/Rotate

Stretch/Skew

Invert Colors

Attributes

Clear Image

Draw Opaque

Let's edit the size of your picture by clicking on Stretch/Skew. The only part we need is the top of the screen where it says Stretch. In the boxes beside Horizontal and Vertical, enter both the same numbers so your picture will be resized proportionately. Try different numbers till you get the size you want. For example, if your picture is so big that it takes more than a full screen, type 15 (%) in both boxes and click on OK. You will see a HUGE difference in the size of your picture! It may even be too small now. The 15 means that your picture will be 85% smaller. If you make a mistake, you can easily return the picture to it's original size by locating Edit at the top of the screen and clicking Undo.

Play around with your picture till you get it the size you want and then click on File, then Save As. A safe way to save your picture is to type a slightly different name such as Old Fashioned Girl Small so that you still have the original picture to play around with. It is better to have both sizes of pictures saved. You will find that if you try to make a picture bigger by typing 150% (this would make the picture 50% bigger than the original), your picture probably will be blurry. Well, that's a short lesson in resizing pictures with Paint. There are a lot of other things you can do in the Paint Program, so have fun and play with it! That's the best way to learn.

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