Howdy folks;

Looking for a tutorial on how to create thumbnails for the galleries...

thanks for viewing,

have a nice day.

 Do you mean how to make a thumbnail that will make people click your image or simply "how do I make a 200x200 pixel picture?

The first.. takes some skill and luck. I usually make a new pic 200x200 pixels in Photoshop and use a copy of the render which I move around until I find a suitable part for a thumbnail. sometimes it's easy, sometimes... not so much.

And that partially answers the other option, the how (practically): I use Photoshop. You can use any image processing software.

A third option is to do a render 200x200 pixels. either of the full scene if it fits the aspcect ratio OR a part of the scene. 

it's gotta be under something like 13kb big. always a prob for getting them to look nice. I also think that Photoshop lies about the file size.

In Photoshop, the image must be saved for the web, and in the separate window, you can designate 15 kb as your final size.  Photoshop does the rest.

BTW, thumbnail size is 15 kb unless that recently changed.

thanks dude! that's good to know. I had been using an old copy of PS elements but recently got CS 5.5. Didnt know that option was there.

Quote - In Photoshop, the image must be saved for the web, and in the separate window, you can designate 15 kb as your final size.  Photoshop does the rest.

BTW, thumbnail size is 15 kb unless that recently changed.

Yup. I have Photoshop CS 3, and I find that for a given quality of jpeg, saving it for the web makes it a little smaller, which is really important for thumbnails. Unfortunately, at least through CS 3 the dialog box doesn't tell you how big the file will be (unlike "save as ..."), so you may find yourself looking at the file properties.

I've also found that, if you are going to crop your picture to make the thumbnail, a good workflow is as follows:

Crop to about 25% larger area than you want covered in the thumbnail.

Resize to 250 pixels by 250 pixels.

Create a new 200 pixel by 200 pixel image.

Copy and paste the cropped image into the new one. It will come in as a new layer, and you can drag it around to get exactly what you want. This has the advangage that it will be exactly 200 pixels on a side.

@AnAardvark:

In my copy of Photoshop CS3, the Mac version, it says how big the saved file will be.

In the window "Save for web & devices" I choose the tab "Optimized" and then the file size shows up in the lower left corner.

I just use the Preview App that came on my Mac. It allows me to adjust the size of the  jpeg I'm looking at.