Tutorial: How to Get Bigger Photos in Blogger

Doesn't my kid look so great? Big, bright, colorful.... CUTE?
Have you noticed that I like my pictures a bit on the bigger side?
Did you know that if I just uploaded this pic from my computer into my post, the biggest it could get is THIS?

Boo. BORING. I mean, if you've got GOOD photos, they deserve some room to FLY!
(Contrarily, if you are know for your BAD photos [thumbs in the viewscreen, heads chopped off, etc.], or are not featuring your photography on your blog and are more of a wordsmith, you don't really need this tutorial. So move along.)

But if you have been coveting my big photos, covet no longer. Come, and learn.
But first, I must give credit where credit is due. My own eyes were first opened to the magic of GETTING BIGGER BLOG PHOTOS from a darling, charming photographer I admire, Megan Cristello, who had a great tutorial of her own a couple of years ago. (I'd link it, but Blogger has changed its ways since then, so some of her info is not applicable anymore.)

Okay. Here it is, with visuals.

#1. You are going to need an online photo storage/HTML code generating site. This adds in a couple of extra steps in your blogging, but for the big pics, it is worth it.
Get a Photobucket account. It's free. Or any other photo upload site that provides HTML code. Here is what mine looks like.

See each photo? Underneath is a set of different codes that can be used on blogs, email, message boards, facebook, etc.
Also notice (click the pic to see it bigger) that above each picture is a list of options (edit/move/share/delete). This comes in handy for step #2.

#2. Resize your image in Photobucket. Click the "edit" button to get to this screen:Once in the edit screen, go to the "new size" boxes above the photo (mine says 500 x 675).

You'll resize your image to fit your blog. A good standard width is 400. My particular blog template (Minima Stretch) allows for even wider photos, so I will sometimes even go up to 650 or 700 wide.

*a note-- because Blogger is a vertical friendly layout, your horizontal images will necessarily be smaller than your vertical ones. The photo I posted at the beginning of this post of Noah is HUGE. It is 650 wide by 878 high. If it were horizontal, it would still be 650 wide, but only 445 high. Make sense?

#3. Once you have the size you want, you can either click "save a copy", keeping the original sized one intact, or click "replace original". I usually just replace the original, because I typically don't have use for a HUGE file of the same pic online.

#4. Now you are going to upload you Photobucket photos to your blog post. When you go to your Blogger screen, you'll click the photo icon as usual. But instead of clicking "browse" to get images from your hard drive, you will look to the right and instead be entering the URL of your Photobucket image in the box on the right.
Where do you get the URL? Well, remember the codes under each Photobucket image? Go copy the one that says "direct link" and paste it here. You can do up to five at a time by clicking the "add another image" link. When you have your codes put in, hit "upload". And stand back and be amazed at how much faster your photos load to your blog. Man, HTML is awesome.

#5. Now. Ideally, you now have a gorgeous, HUGE photo on your blog. Ta-da! But one more thing. Sometimes you have misjudged in Photobucket just how big you wanted your photos. Maybe they are TOO big. Or frankly, maybe you were too lazy in Photobucket to actually RESIZE them. Lucky you-- Blogger has a useful trick.

See the numbers in the upper right corner of the photo put in the blog? You can click and hold the upper right corner of your photo and those will appear. That is the size of your picture. You can drag the photo down and it will get SMALLER. AMAZING!
But BEWARE: If you want to make your photo BIGGER, dragging it bigger will not work-- the photo will appear blurry and pixelated. Also, if you have dragged it down too far and it is now TOO small, you cannot go BACK to the original size without some loss of quality in the photo. So use this trick judiciously.

In theory, then, you could just upload full photos to Photobucket, NOT bother to edit them there, and just resize them all in Blogger. The reason I don't? It is more tedious to get that stupid dragged corner to the EXACT numbers I want, and is therefore worth it to me to do the extra step in Photobucket.

And okay, I just lied. Most of the time, I actually do my resizing in PHOTOSHOP before I ever go to Photobucket (making sure to save the smaller photo with a different file name so the original, lovely large file is preserved for printing potential.) I'm sorry I lied. It's just.... well, I want to keep this streamlined for you. Ya know?

Okay. To Summarize:
1. You want BIG photos.
2. You'll need an external photo website that provides code.
3. You'll upload your images there first, then from there to Blogger.
4. You'll resize them to your satisfaction either in the photo program or in Blogger.
5. Your friends will OOH and AAH over your blog's new look-- bigger, fresher, more inviting... And Great Aunt Bethyl can SEE the photos, finally.
6. You'll either keep this new secret to yourselves, or you'll link back here and give praise and glory to me, your helpful teacher. Who in turn gives credit back to Megan Cristello, who taught HER.

Got it? Now, let's enjoy some more BIG photos to end this session, just for fun, and just because I can. Neener neener.

{Noah, when he was less than 36 hours old}

{Venice, 2006. DANG I wanna go back.}
{Cupcakes by me: Circa Feb. 2008. Yum.}

{My beloved and me, October 2007, preggy with Noah}

(oh, and one more fun thing about having a Photobucket account-- all these archived photos from blog posts past... right at my Photobucket fingertips. :) Can I say "Photobucket" any more times? You think the GoogleBots will find me and tell Photobucket and Photobucket will send me a big fat check? Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket???? LOL!)