HTML5 Pre-resize images before uploading

Question

Yes, use the File API, then you can process the images with the canvas element.

This Mozilla Hacks blog post walks you through most of the process. For reference here's the assembled source code from the blog post:

// from an input element
var filesToUpload = input.files;
var file = filesToUpload[0];

var img = document.createElement("img");
var reader = new FileReader();  
reader.onload = function(e) {img.src = e.target.result}
reader.readAsDataURL(file);

var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0);

var MAX_WIDTH = 800;
var MAX_HEIGHT = 600;
var width = img.width;
var height = img.height;

if (width > height) {
  if (width > MAX_WIDTH) {
    height *= MAX_WIDTH / width;
    width = MAX_WIDTH;
  }
} else {
  if (height > MAX_HEIGHT) {
    width *= MAX_HEIGHT / height;
    height = MAX_HEIGHT;
  }
}
canvas.width = width;
canvas.height = height;
var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0, width, height);

var dataurl = canvas.toDataURL("image/png");

//Post dataurl to the server with AJAX

I tackled this problem a few years ago and uploaded my solution to github as https://github.com/rossturner/HTML5-ImageUploader

robertc's answer uses the solution proposed in the Mozilla Hacks blog post, however I found this gave really poor image quality when resizing to a scale that was not 2:1 (or a multiple thereof). I started experimenting with different image resizing algorithms, although most ended up being quite slow or else were not great in quality either.

Finally I came up with a solution which I believe executes quickly and has pretty good performance too - as the Mozilla solution of copying from 1 canvas to another works quickly and without loss of image quality at a 2:1 ratio, given a target of x pixels wide and y pixels tall, I use this canvas resizing method until the image is between x and 2 x, and y and 2 y. At this point I then turn to algorithmic image resizing for the final "step" of resizing down to the target size. After trying several different algorithms I settled on bilinear interpolation taken from a blog which is not online anymore but accessible via the Internet Archive, which gives good results, here's the applicable code:

ImageUploader.prototype.scaleImage = function(img, completionCallback) {
    var canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
    canvas.width = img.width;
    canvas.height = img.height;
    canvas.getContext('2d').drawImage(img, 0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);

    while (canvas.width >= (2 * this.config.maxWidth)) {
        canvas = this.getHalfScaleCanvas(canvas);
    }

    if (canvas.width > this.config.maxWidth) {
        canvas = this.scaleCanvasWithAlgorithm(canvas);
    }

    var imageData = canvas.toDataURL('image/jpeg', this.config.quality);
    this.performUpload(imageData, completionCallback);
};

ImageUploader.prototype.scaleCanvasWithAlgorithm = function(canvas) {
    var scaledCanvas = document.createElement('canvas');

    var scale = this.config.maxWidth / canvas.width;

    scaledCanvas.width = canvas.width * scale;
    scaledCanvas.height = canvas.height * scale;

    var srcImgData = canvas.getContext('2d').getImageData(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
    var destImgData = scaledCanvas.getContext('2d').createImageData(scaledCanvas.width, scaledCanvas.height);

    this.applyBilinearInterpolation(srcImgData, destImgData, scale);

    scaledCanvas.getContext('2d').putImageData(destImgData, 0, 0);

    return scaledCanvas;
};

ImageUploader.prototype.getHalfScaleCanvas = function(canvas) {
    var halfCanvas = document.createElement('canvas');
    halfCanvas.width = canvas.width / 2;
    halfCanvas.height = canvas.height / 2;

    halfCanvas.getContext('2d').drawImage(canvas, 0, 0, halfCanvas.width, halfCanvas.height);

    return halfCanvas;
};

ImageUploader.prototype.applyBilinearInterpolation = function(srcCanvasData, destCanvasData, scale) {
    function inner(f00, f10, f01, f11, x, y) {
        var un_x = 1.0 - x;
        var un_y = 1.0 - y;
        return (f00 * un_x * un_y + f10 * x * un_y + f01 * un_x * y + f11 * x * y);
    }
    var i, j;
    var iyv, iy0, iy1, ixv, ix0, ix1;
    var idxD, idxS00, idxS10, idxS01, idxS11;
    var dx, dy;
    var r, g, b, a;
    for (i = 0; i < destCanvasData.height; ++i) {
        iyv = i / scale;
        iy0 = Math.floor(iyv);
        // Math.ceil can go over bounds
        iy1 = (Math.ceil(iyv) > (srcCanvasData.height - 1) ? (srcCanvasData.height - 1) : Math.ceil(iyv));
        for (j = 0; j < destCanvasData.width; ++j) {
            ixv = j / scale;
            ix0 = Math.floor(ixv);
            // Math.ceil can go over bounds
            ix1 = (Math.ceil(ixv) > (srcCanvasData.width - 1) ? (srcCanvasData.width - 1) : Math.ceil(ixv));
            idxD = (j + destCanvasData.width * i) * 4;
            // matrix to vector indices
            idxS00 = (ix0 + srcCanvasData.width * iy0) * 4;
            idxS10 = (ix1 + srcCanvasData.width * iy0) * 4;
            idxS01 = (ix0 + srcCanvasData.width * iy1) * 4;
            idxS11 = (ix1 + srcCanvasData.width * iy1) * 4;
            // overall coordinates to unit square
            dx = ixv - ix0;
            dy = iyv - iy0;
            // I let the r, g, b, a on purpose for debugging
            r = inner(srcCanvasData.data[idxS00], srcCanvasData.data[idxS10], srcCanvasData.data[idxS01], srcCanvasData.data[idxS11], dx, dy);
            destCanvasData.data[idxD] = r;

            g = inner(srcCanvasData.data[idxS00 + 1], srcCanvasData.data[idxS10 + 1], srcCanvasData.data[idxS01 + 1], srcCanvasData.data[idxS11 + 1], dx, dy);
            destCanvasData.data[idxD + 1] = g;

            b = inner(srcCanvasData.data[idxS00 + 2], srcCanvasData.data[idxS10 + 2], srcCanvasData.data[idxS01 + 2], srcCanvasData.data[idxS11 + 2], dx, dy);
            destCanvasData.data[idxD + 2] = b;

            a = inner(srcCanvasData.data[idxS00 + 3], srcCanvasData.data[idxS10 + 3], srcCanvasData.data[idxS01 + 3], srcCanvasData.data[idxS11 + 3], dx, dy);
            destCanvasData.data[idxD + 3] = a;
        }
    }
};

This scales an image down to a width of config.maxWidth, maintaining the original aspect ratio. At the time of development this worked on iPad/iPhone Safari in addition to major desktop browsers (IE9+, Firefox, Chrome) so I expect it will still be compatible given the broader uptake of HTML5 today. Note that the canvas.toDataURL() call takes a mime type and image quality which will allow you to control the quality and output file format (potentially different to input if you wish).

The only point this doesn't cover is maintaining the orientation information, without knowledge of this metadata the image is resized and saved as-is, losing any metadata within the image for orientation meaning that images taken on a tablet device "upside down" were rendered as such, although they would have been flipped in the device's camera viewfinder. If this is a concern, this blog post has a good guide and code examples on how to accomplish this, which I'm sure could be integrated to the above code.

Correction to above:

<img src="" id="image">
<input id="input" type="file" onchange="handleFiles()">
<script>

function handleFiles()
{
    var filesToUpload = document.getElementById('input').files;
    var file = filesToUpload[0];

    // Create an image
    var img = document.createElement("img");
    // Create a file reader
    var reader = new FileReader();
    // Set the image once loaded into file reader
    reader.onload = function(e)
    {
        img.src = e.target.result;

        var canvas = document.createElement("canvas");
        //var canvas = $("<canvas>", {"id":"testing"})[0];
        var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
        ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0);

        var MAX_WIDTH = 400;
        var MAX_HEIGHT = 300;
        var width = img.width;
        var height = img.height;

        if (width > height) {
          if (width > MAX_WIDTH) {
            height *= MAX_WIDTH / width;
            width = MAX_WIDTH;
          }
        } else {
          if (height > MAX_HEIGHT) {
            width *= MAX_HEIGHT / height;
            height = MAX_HEIGHT;
          }
        }
        canvas.width = width;
        canvas.height = height;
        var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
        ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0, width, height);

        var dataurl = canvas.toDataURL("image/png");
        document.getElementById('image').src = dataurl;     
    }
    // Load files into file reader
    reader.readAsDataURL(file);


    // Post the data
    /*
    var fd = new FormData();
    fd.append("name", "some_filename.jpg");
    fd.append("image", dataurl);
    fd.append("info", "lah_de_dah");
    */
}</script>

Modification to the answer by Justin that works for me:

1. Added img.onload
2. Expand the POST request with a real example

function handleFiles()
{
    var dataurl = null;
    var filesToUpload = document.getElementById('photo').files;
    var file = filesToUpload[0];

    // Create an image
    var img = document.createElement("img");
    // Create a file reader
    var reader = new FileReader();
    // Set the image once loaded into file reader
    reader.onload = function(e)
    {
        img.src = e.target.result;

        img.onload = function () {
            var canvas = document.createElement("canvas");
            var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
            ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0);

            var MAX_WIDTH = 800;
            var MAX_HEIGHT = 600;
            var width = img.width;
            var height = img.height;

            if (width > height) {
              if (width > MAX_WIDTH) {
                height *= MAX_WIDTH / width;
                width = MAX_WIDTH;
              }
            } else {
              if (height > MAX_HEIGHT) {
                width *= MAX_HEIGHT / height;
                height = MAX_HEIGHT;
              }
            }
            canvas.width = width;
            canvas.height = height;
            var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
            ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0, width, height);

            dataurl = canvas.toDataURL("image/jpeg");

            // Post the data
            var fd = new FormData();
            fd.append("name", "some_filename.jpg");
            fd.append("image", dataurl);
            fd.append("info", "lah_de_dah");
            $.ajax({
                url: '/ajax_photo',
                data: fd,
                cache: false,
                contentType: false,
                processData: false,
                type: 'POST',
                success: function(data){
                    $('#form_photo')[0].reset();
                    location.reload();
                }
            });
        } // img.onload
    }
    // Load files into file reader
    reader.readAsDataURL(file);
}

Typescript

async resizeImg(file: Blob): Promise<Blob> {
    let img = document.createElement("img");
    img.src = await new Promise<any>(resolve => {
        let reader = new FileReader();
        reader.onload = (e: any) => resolve(e.target.result);
        reader.readAsDataURL(file);
    });
    await new Promise(resolve => img.onload = resolve)
    let canvas = document.createElement("canvas");
    let ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
    ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0);
    let MAX_WIDTH = 1000;
    let MAX_HEIGHT = 1000;
    let width = img.naturalWidth;
    let height = img.naturalHeight;
    if (width > height) {
        if (width > MAX_WIDTH) {
            height *= MAX_WIDTH / width;
            width = MAX_WIDTH;
        }
    } else {
        if (height > MAX_HEIGHT) {
            width *= MAX_HEIGHT / height;
            height = MAX_HEIGHT;
        }
    }
    canvas.width = width;
    canvas.height = height;
    ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
    ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0, width, height);
    let result = await new Promise<Blob>(resolve => { canvas.toBlob(resolve, 'image/jpeg', 0.95); });
    return result;
}