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Is Your Blog Slow? Reduce Your Photo Sizes

By
Services for Real Estate Pros with RealSatisfied

Project Blogger LogoIf your blog loads slow, people won't stay to read it...
no matter how well written it might be.

If I've never visited a blog before, nothing will make me leave faster than slow load times.

And nothing contributes to slow load times more than large photo files. I've been working with Julie Ferenzi on this for a while now, and this morning I did a little "training" video to illustrate how to us Picnik, a free online photo editing tool that may make your life easier. I'm a Photoshop freak, but not everyone is or will be.

Picnik makes doing most of the things you need very simple. You can rotate, crop, resize, fix exposure, colors, sharpen, remove red-eye, and apply a number of "creative" effects to your images. And you can do all of this without even signing up. Being able to see it exactly as it will appear online, because you ARE online, is one of the benefits. For the novice photo editor, this is simple and effective.  

Picnik

This video will show you the basics and talk a bit about sizing your photos for a post. But I recommend you go take a look at Picnik. I did this video this morning and Jonathon posted a little blurb about it today as well. You'll also notice that Julie's Living In Plainfield blog loads a lot faster now. :)

 


Online Videos by Veoh.com

 

Show All Comments
Jeff Turner
RealSatisfied - Santa Clarita, CA
Christopher... thanks for stopping by. When I say "reduce," I mean in file size, not in dimensions. That's exactly what this post is about. The fact that text in flash files is not read by the spiders won't reduce your SEO, but it certainly won't improve it. 
Jun 11, 2007 12:47 PM
No Longer Active
Real Estate - Fallon, MT
Good tips.... I have noticed several ActiveRain blogs recently that load very slow...
Jun 11, 2007 12:49 PM
Missy Caulk
Missy Caulk TEAM - Ann Arbor, MI
Savvy Realtor - Ann Arbor Real Estate
Jeff, I will definately try it out. My Kodak v750 is taking larger photos than my older camera, and was wondering what to do.
Jun 11, 2007 12:53 PM
Mary Pope-Handy
Christie's International Real Estate Sereno - Los Gatos, CA
CRS, CIPS, ABR, SRES, Silicon Valley
Jeff thank you so much. I have Adobe Photo Delux (akward, slow) and have also been using Picasa but Picasa does NOT change the size of the file, unfortunately. And it takes too many steps to do in Adobe Photo Deluxe. Thanks for the tip. I will definitely check it out!!!

Mary

PS I'm sorry I didn't think to ask you or Rocky to show me a family pic when I saw you in Long Beach. Don't lemme forget in SF!!
Jun 11, 2007 01:00 PM
Deborah Burns ~ Seattle Real Estate Agent
Realty Executives -BRIO - Seattle, WA
I will have to check this out...thanks!  I have been told that my photos are "too large" but could not figure out how to reduce them.
Jun 11, 2007 01:54 PM
Joan Mirantz
Homequest Real Estate - Concord, NH
Realtor, GRI, CBR, SRES - Concord New Hampshire
Thanks Jeff...I use Photobucket now and have been very happy with it...but I always love a new toy!
Jun 11, 2007 01:57 PM
ARDELL DellaLoggia
Better Properties Seattle - Kirkland, WA
I use HP Image Zone.  All agents need to reduce the size and clean up the photos, just to load them into the mls. 
Jun 11, 2007 06:53 PM
Martin Rodriguez
Pacific Funding - Valencia, CA
Senior Loan Consultant

Jeff  -- You forgot the Microsoft Corrollary to your blog..

Which is.. If its too slow and the software is to difficult to use..

Throw away the computer, buy new hardware with a faster processor, get more memory, a new operating system and don't worry about the cost - its a tax write off.  

When done, repeat the process with another computer.

:-)

MR

Jun 11, 2007 07:02 PM
Darrel Quebedeaux
Evergreen Realty & Associates Inc. - Newport Coast, CA
Thanks Jeff, great info and I am going to the picnik site next.  I appreciate you sharing your wisdom.
Jun 11, 2007 07:55 PM
Jeff Turner
RealSatisfied - Santa Clarita, CA

Martin.... hilarious. ;)

Ardell... yes, they should. But lately, especially on community blog posts, where the photos are not of listings, I've been seeing postage sized images that redraw line by line. Those images were obviously uploaded at full resolution and scaled down in the post window. That's the wrong way to do it.

Joan... I like photobucket... in fact, the first Picnik video I did was uploaded to Photobucket video about 5 weeks ago. I never posted about it then, and Julie never listened to me. Photobucket does not have the features that Picnik has, but it's a great service.  http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t149/reshows/?action=view&current=picnik1.flv 

Jun 11, 2007 08:11 PM
John Evarts
Classic Property Management of Santa Clarita - Santa Clarita, CA
Jeff, does my AR page load slow? It doesn't seem that it does to me, but, I'm not the one who matters. I have used quite a few pics lately off my new camera.
Jun 12, 2007 09:28 AM
Jeff Turner
RealSatisfied - Santa Clarita, CA
John, AR resizes the photos you upload to their system, so this would only impact outside blogs. Typepad allows for custom creation of thumbnails, so this should not be an issue with Typepad users, unless they are ignoring that option. 
Jun 12, 2007 10:37 AM
John Evarts
Classic Property Management of Santa Clarita - Santa Clarita, CA
thanks jeff
Jun 13, 2007 08:01 AM
Jeff Turner
RealSatisfied - Santa Clarita, CA
De nada.
Jun 13, 2007 12:47 PM
Herb Hamilton
RE/MAX Preferred Inc. Realtors - Portland, OR
Real Estate Broker ,CDPE, Downtown Portland

Jeff,

How do you like Picknik Compared with Picasa? Is it easier to choose,modify and export than Picasa?

Jun 13, 2007 02:32 PM
Anonymous
Davison
Really enjoyed this blog space Jeff and found this particular thread to be really informative. I was not aware of Picnik until now. Very cool.
Jun 13, 2007 04:06 PM
#21
Jeff Turner
RealSatisfied - Santa Clarita, CA

Herb... I've never used Picassa, so I can't comment. I've tried a bunch of other online photo editors, like Fauxto, but they weren't as intuitive and simple to use as picnik. Ease of use is a critical factor for me. I'm in my element on the computer and few things scare me, but I still want simple, fast and intuitive. Since Google is going to take over the world, I should probably go play with Picassa a bit. 

Davison... it is. You'll like it. 

Jun 13, 2007 05:53 PM
Paula Hathaway, REALTOR, LBA
Douglas Elliman Real Estate - Southampton, NY
...A Local Expert in all The Hamptons

Hi Jeff,

First of all I want to tell you that I use RES on all of listings and the response is great...now I am opening my staging business and my new website is under construction. I would really like to know how to add my RES to my blog and to my new website--is there a tutorial or something I can look at to find out how to do that?

I did join widget but it was so confusing that I got lost....

Thank you for your help and your genius!

Paula

Nov 16, 2007 02:02 AM
Jeff Turner
RealSatisfied - Santa Clarita, CA

Paula... here is a tutorial for you.

http://activerain.com/blogsview/158810/Embedding-Anything-In-Your 

Nov 16, 2007 04:24 AM
Gary Urich
Elliott Costal Living / Better Homes & Garden Real Estate - North Myrtle Beach, SC
North Myrtle Beach Real Estate
Thank you for the helpful info.Have a great weekend.Thanks again
Nov 16, 2007 05:06 AM
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