The method of choice for resizing is "Save for Web" where you pick the size based on the longest dimension (set to 800px) then move the slider to get you to less than 300kb.
i think i figured out my problem. I am using Lightroom and the target file size was set to 100kb, i set it to 300 and now its smooth.
but now i have a new issue, i was doing this editing on my laptop last night and when i got to work the picture is all dark on my monitor, i guess i need to do some calibration to both :(
Good thing you figured that out. There is this one particular anal retentive voter that always leaves long winded comments about JPEG compression.
Laptop monitors, especially inexpensive ones, tend to not have very good screens for photo editing. I have a cheap netbook and I can tell that it does not display all the nuances of color and detail to me. You can do an easy visual calibration that will at least get the brightness and contrast in the ballpark. Under every challenge entry there is a strip of blocks going from pure white to solid black. Adjust your monitor so that you can see a slight difference between all the squares. If the ends look like one long block of the same shade, then it's not quite right yet.
Laptop monitors, especially inexpensive ones, tend to not have very good screens for photo editing. I have a cheap netbook and I can tell that it does not display all the nuances of color and detail to me. You can do an easy visual calibration that will at least get the brightness and contrast in the ballpark. Under every challenge entry there is a strip of blocks going from pure white to solid black. Adjust your monitor so that you can see a slight difference between all the squares. If the ends look like one long block of the same shade, then it's not quite right yet.
Laptop monitors, especially inexpensive ones, tend to not have very good screens for photo editing. I have a cheap netbook and I can tell that it does not display all the nuances of color and detail to me. You can do an easy visual calibration that will at least get the brightness and contrast in the ballpark. Under every challenge entry there is a strip of blocks going from pure white to solid black. Adjust your monitor so that you can see a slight difference between all the squares. If the ends look like one long block of the same shade, then it's not quite right yet.
Where are the blocks? I don't see them.
took me a little while to find them too...go to a current challenge that is in voting...scroll down to the near bottom of the page and you will see the blocks under the comment block...
