Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Okay, I'd love to upload photos online without losing too much quality..
I take 15.2MP+RAW pictures.. which come up to 7MB or so per picture..
I'd like to upload those pics to facebook and other sites for viewing..
What could I do with photoshop to make em still nice but smaller.. and neater?
I'ma total noob with photoshop, I got photoshop cs3
Thanks!

you got no luck if you want to keep quality on facebook, i believe it depends on the sites you are uploading to.

I would just like to make the files really smaller and have it look good..
also any tricks or tips for photoshop..?
I got like 250 new 15.2MP+Raw pics that I have to go through tonight :/

did you read my post above? It depends on the site you are uploading to, how they keep the dpi for each photo file (like facebook and flickr). Of course if anyone can prove me wrong feel free to since i am no IT guy and my words might be not trustworthy.

You can use actions to make your 250+ 15.2 million pixel files into smaller size.

There's no way of making your files smaller while keeping the quality high. Or at least I don't think so. If you want to upload to Facebook, save your pictures on high. FB compresses them all anyway... there's no other way. FB is terrible for photos (especially colours) but you'll just have to accept it if you want to use it.

Flickr can handle the highest jpg quality from Photoshop but you risk using up your monthly upload limit if you don't have Pro. I upload my jpgs onto Flickr with Photoshop set to 12 (highest quality). Flickr doesn't compress anything.

So in other words, when you "save as" your raw file into jpg for uploading, use the quality bar to adjust the size. Sites like Flickr, which are for actual photo sharing, don't compress your photos and maintains the colours. Facebook is a networking site.. they don't want you to use up their space so they compress all the photos.

So as Stephen says, depends on where you upload. For Flickr, keep the quality at it's highest. Facebook, keep the quality at it's highest too but expect the uploaded photos to be a bit off.

note, facebook auto resize to 604px

This is FYI only, not to start a debate in this thread.

You don't want to upload too high a quality online, especially to sites like Facebook. Any image you upload online you should consider it may be taken and used without your permission. Some people watermark their images, but watermarks can be removed/cropped out.

Regarding Facebook itself from another thread, "FACEBOOK has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures WITHOUT your permission. " There's more about that in:
http://tpmg.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12518

Photoshop has Save for Web and Devices command, where you can easily resize, compress and add colour profile all in one place, it's recommended if you want to show pics online, also listen to the other replies, I think they know what they're talking about

Agree. As a noob I'd use this command. Problem with the web is people use monitors to view everything. The photo quality online is limited by our monitors' resolution. Beyond a certain quality the monitor won't detect any improvement. Use the Save for Web and Devices command and it will optimise the quality/size of your photo.