Re-sizing an image without losing quality

If your image source is a png then use like this:

Image imgSmall = imgBig.getScaledInstance(
        targetWidth, targetHeight, Image.SCALE_SMOOTH);

If you want to resize jpeg or gif without loose too much quality, I made a library in 2010 for this: beautylib on github that uses internally this other library: java-image-scaling. You can see directly the source code to find something useful: https://github.com/felipelalli/beautylib/blob/master/src/br/eti/fml/beautylib/ResizeImage.java

The best article I have ever read on this topic is The Perils of Image.getScaledInstance() (web archive).

In short: You need to use several resizing steps in order to get a good image. Helper method from the article:

public BufferedImage getScaledInstance(BufferedImage img,
                                       int targetWidth,
                                       int targetHeight,
                                       Object hint,
                                       boolean higherQuality)
{
    int type = (img.getTransparency() == Transparency.OPAQUE) ?
        BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB : BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB;
    BufferedImage ret = (BufferedImage)img;
    int w, h;
    if (higherQuality) {
        // Use multi-step technique: start with original size, then
        // scale down in multiple passes with drawImage()
        // until the target size is reached
        w = img.getWidth();
        h = img.getHeight();
    } else {
        // Use one-step technique: scale directly from original
        // size to target size with a single drawImage() call
        w = targetWidth;
        h = targetHeight;
    }

    do {
        if (higherQuality && w > targetWidth) {
            w /= 2;
            if (w < targetWidth) {
                w = targetWidth;
            }
        }

        if (higherQuality && h > targetHeight) {
            h /= 2;
            if (h < targetHeight) {
                h = targetHeight;
            }
        }

        BufferedImage tmp = new BufferedImage(w, h, type);
        Graphics2D g2 = tmp.createGraphics();
        g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_INTERPOLATION, hint);
        g2.drawImage(ret, 0, 0, w, h, null);
        g2.dispose();

        ret = tmp;
    } while (w != targetWidth || h != targetHeight);

    return ret;
}

Know question is old... I've tried different solutions surfing then web, I got the best result using getScaledInstance(), supplying Image.SCALE_SMOOTH as argument. In fact the resulting image quality was really better. My code below:

final int THUMB_SIDE = 140;
try {
    BufferedImage masterImage = ImageIO.read(startingImage);
    BufferedImage thumbImage = new BufferedImage(THUMB_SIDE, THUMB_SIDE, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
    Graphics2D g2d = thumbImage.createGraphics();
    g2d.drawImage(masterImage.getScaledInstance(THUMB_SIDE, THUMB_SIDE, Image.SCALE_SMOOTH), 0, 0, THUMB_SIDE, THUMB_SIDE, null);
    g2d.dispose();
    String thumb_path = path.substring(0, path.indexOf(".png")) + "_thumb.png";
    ImageIO.write(thumbImage, "png", new File(thumb_path));
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

The following code produced me highest quality resize with aspect ratio preserved. Tried few things and read several entries presented here in other answers. Lost two days and in the end I got the best result with plain Java method (tried also ImageMagick and java-image-scaling libraries):

public static boolean resizeUsingJavaAlgo(String source, File dest, int width, int height) throws IOException {
  BufferedImage sourceImage = ImageIO.read(new FileInputStream(source));
  double ratio = (double) sourceImage.getWidth()/sourceImage.getHeight();
  if (width < 1) {
    width = (int) (height * ratio + 0.4);
  } else if (height < 1) {
    height = (int) (width /ratio + 0.4);
  }

  Image scaled = sourceImage.getScaledInstance(width, height, Image.SCALE_AREA_AVERAGING);
  BufferedImage bufferedScaled = new BufferedImage(scaled.getWidth(null), scaled.getHeight(null), BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
  Graphics2D g2d = bufferedScaled.createGraphics();
  g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_INTERPOLATION, RenderingHints.VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BICUBIC);
  g2d.drawImage(scaled, 0, 0, width, height, null);
  dest.createNewFile();
  writeJpeg(bufferedScaled, dest.getCanonicalPath(), 1.0f);
  return true;
}


/**
* Write a JPEG file setting the compression quality.
*
* @param image a BufferedImage to be saved
* @param destFile destination file (absolute or relative path)
* @param quality a float between 0 and 1, where 1 means uncompressed.
* @throws IOException in case of problems writing the file
*/
private static void writeJpeg(BufferedImage image, String destFile, float quality)
      throws IOException {
  ImageWriter writer = null;
  FileImageOutputStream output = null;
  try {
    writer = ImageIO.getImageWritersByFormatName("jpeg").next();
    ImageWriteParam param = writer.getDefaultWriteParam();
    param.setCompressionMode(ImageWriteParam.MODE_EXPLICIT);
    param.setCompressionQuality(quality);
    output = new FileImageOutputStream(new File(destFile));
    writer.setOutput(output);
    IIOImage iioImage = new IIOImage(image, null, null);
    writer.write(null, iioImage, param);
  } catch (IOException ex) {
    throw ex;
  } finally {
    if (writer != null) {
      writer.dispose();
    }
    if (output != null) {
      output.close();
    }
  }
}