you can scale down the image first.
(Add) assume you are using ImageIcon:
ImageIcon icon = ...;
int targetH, targetW;
Image img = icon.getImage();
img = img.getScaledInstance(targetH, targetW, Image.SCALE_SMOOTH);
icon.setImage(img);
JLabel l = new JLabel(icon);
Message was edited by:
j_shadinata