Site needs Several Different Sizes of Each Photo + What is most efficient method to provide this
<p>Users join a site I'm building and will update an image (or several).</p>

<p>The image (especially if main image - any any image can be this or changed to this) the image will be displayed in different sizes - total of 5 different sizes.</p>

<pre><code>1 - full original image - lightbox image
2. - cropped large - main profile image
3. - cropped medium - search image
4. - cropped smaller - display of multiple users image
5. - cropped very small - chat image
</code></pre>

<p>All images will be changed to jpg and compressed to 80% and the user will do the cropping using Jcrop.</p>

<p>I wanted to know what would be the most efficient method to have these images.</p>

<p>My current plan is to save the original and post crop create 4 more images.
This means for each image there will be 5 images.</p>

<p>Is there a better way to do this?</p>

<p>Should I make the last 3 (3/4/5) all be the same image just sized differently with CSS?</p>

<p>I've heard about a PHP function to change the image size on the fly but I've also heard this is heavy on the processing and might be inefficient in its own way.</p>

<p>thoughts? advice?</p>

<p>thankyou</p>
