When a picture is added to the profile data for a user, no matter its real size, the image is resized when displayed. Just for reference, by default the profile image sizes are as follows:
Profile page image size: 80 x 100 pixels
People Search results page image size: 60 x 75 pixels
They can obviously be adjusted from the current setting, but this is what they are out of the box.
So, why do I mention it? I had a client bring up an interesting point. They want to be able to have the employee pictures available, but don’t want users to be able to take the original photo and use it for unauthorized purposes (marketing, slide decks, etc…). In order to prevent this, they decided to use the lowest-res photo that SharePoint needed. This provides a number of advantages:
- The images saved are optimized for SharePoint’s usage and don’t need to be auto-resized when being used on the Profile page. They will still be resized for the search results page.
- The images are smaller and take up less storage space
- The smaller images load faster
- The images are too small to be blown up and re-used. Marketing controls larger hi-res photos for that purpose.
So, nothing earth-shattering here, but interesting none the less. 🙂
There are a number of methods and approches that can be used for storing, managing and automating the use of images for profile pictures. We can cover that another time or upon request.