Originally posted by jacamar Thanks Erik for taking the time to explain this. Usually I feel I'm able to produce images that I find rewarding with fairly simple tweaks in Photoshop Elements, but there are so many variables here I obviously have more work to do. At the same time, it would be nice to have a "zoom" feature that sets the physical dimensions of the image at an appropriate level of resolution!
I think the trick is to do a little work up-front and ask a couple of questions.
(1) do you only care about how the image is looking for you (your monitor) or
(2) or are you worried about your image for everyone?
If it is for your own monitor,
* I would find what your monitor's resolution is or set at (google how you can find this for your operating system)
* Next I would use the vertical height of the screen as a guide for selecting size, and basically make a develop (export) setting in LR that is specifically geared towards this size. For instance, the monitor I'm at right now as a 1050 vertical resolution, so I would probably try to keep the height of my image around 800 (I could adjust this after some testing).
* in LR I would go to the "Image Sizing" heading under the Export dialogue: (a) select resize to fit and (b) choose Width and Height in the drop down and (c) give a W and Height based on your screen size (I would probably choose 1500 x 800 for my monitor). The resolution won't matter since you are doing this for the web (again we're focused on pixels not inches)
If you are trying to do this for a great number of people, then I would probably just choose 1200 x 800, but realize that a shot like the one you had above would end up at 533 x 800 because you need the vertical size constrained. However, once you have things set, you can save the preset, and all your exports will essentially fit your need or be zoomed appropriately (i.e. limited by the dimensions you set). You'll never have to think about it again.
Finally, there is something to be said about using a web-site like Flickr, Smug-Mug, etc. You can just upload your images full-size and then go to the web-site, and it will present you with multiple sizes to meet your needs with usually a nice web-size image up front. I think you'll see a lot of people on this forum use that. And, you don't have to think much about what size your image is. The web-site will do that for you.