While Medium provides options to control how your image is displayed within your post (like making it wide or full-bleed), resizing the image file itself to specific dimensions or reducing its file size is typically done before uploading it to Medium.
One common method for resizing an image file before uploading involves using an image editing tool or a built-in utility on your computer.
Steps to Resize an Image File Using a Common Method
Here's a general process, based on methods often available in image editing software or operating system tools, that you can follow before adding the image to your Medium story:
- Select the image file you want to resize on your computer.
- Open the image using a suitable application (e.g., Preview on macOS, Photos or Paint on Windows, or dedicated image editing software like GIMP or Photoshop).
- Look for a menu option related to image manipulation, often under "Tools" or "Image". Click Tools > Adjust Size. (This step specifically reflects the method described in the reference).
- A window or dialog box will appear where you can enter the height, width, or both that you want to resize the image to.
- To maintain the image's proportions and prevent distortion, click the Scale Proportionally box (or ensure a similar option like "Constrain Proportions" is checked). This means changing one dimension (height or width) will automatically update the other to match the original aspect ratio.
- Enter the desired new dimensions.
- Confirm your changes, usually by clicking "OK", "Apply", or resizing the window.
- Save the resized image file. It's often best to save it as a new file to keep the original image unchanged.
By resizing your image using a tool like this before uploading, you ensure it has the desired dimensions and potentially a smaller file size, which can help with loading times.
How Medium Handles Image Display
Once an image is uploaded to Medium, you don't have pixel-level control over resizing within the editor using a method like "Adjust Size". Instead, Medium allows you to select different display options by clicking on the image after inserting it:
- Small: Aligned with the text column.
- Medium: Slightly wider than the text column.
- Large/Wide: Spanning most of the screen width.
- Full-bleed: Stretching from edge to edge of the screen (use high-resolution images for this).
- Alignment: Left, center, or right alignment for smaller images.
These options control the display size and layout relative to your text, but they do not permanently change the dimensions or file size of the image you uploaded.
In summary, while Medium offers display options on the platform, resizing the actual image file to specific dimensions or optimizing its size is a step typically performed before uploading, using external tools following steps similar to selecting the file, clicking Tools > Adjust Size, entering dimensions, and using Scale Proportionally as described.
