How to Resize a Photo or Screenshot With Windows 7 Paint

MSPaint brings back many memories, and not all of them good ones.  That all changes with Windows 7.  Windows 7 Paint has received nearly a full rewrite by Microsoft this time around.  It is packed full of new features including the familiar Office-style Ribbon file menu. It’s quite a jump from previous versions.

Now don’t get me wrong, Paint is still light years away from Photoshop or even Paint.net, but it’s honestly not that bad.  In fact, recently I’ve been using MSPaint for the simple task of quickly resizing images, and I think it’s good enough to share with all you groovyReaders!  Enjoy this new Windows 7 Tip!

How To Use The New Windows 7 Paint Program For Image Resizing

1.  Right-Click the image you want to resize, then on the context menu Click Open with > Paint.

Alternatively depending on what software you have installed, you may also Click Edit.

2.  Once Paint loads Click the Image button on the ribbon, and then Click Resize.

Note: If your Paint window is large enough for the Ribbon to auto-expand, the Image button will become its own ribbon menu.

3.  That step should open the Resize and Skew window.  Here you can choose to resize using percentage or pixels.  My preference is pixels, so I know the exact dimensions of the image.  Enter the Horizontal and Vertical dimensions you would like the picture to be, and then Click OK.

4.  Now that the image is the size you want don’t forget to Click Save.  If you accidently try to exit without saving, Paint will kindly remind you that you have not saved yet, via a pop-up.

All Done!

Hopefully, operation image-resize was a success! Here’s an example where I’ve used Paint to make my image of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster a little bit smaller.  I hope you enjoyed this article as much as he enjoys cookies!