I use the following code for resizing images:

AreaAveragingScaleFilter theFilter =
   new AreaAveragingScaleFilter(pNewWidth, pNewHeight);

FilteredImageSource theProducer =
   new FilteredImageSource(theOrigImage.getSource(), theFilter);

Image image2 = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().createImage(theProducer);

BufferedImage theNewImage2 =
   new BufferedImage( pNewWidth, pNewHeight, theOrigImage.getType() );
               
Graphics2D g2 = theNewImage2.createGraphics();
                   
g2.drawImage(image2, 0, 0, null);
g2.dispose();

The problem with it is that it occassionaly takes a very long time to
resize an image.  The odd thing is that if I take an image right out of
my camera (a 3MB image) it resizes it in 5 seconds.  If I edit that same
image in Photoshop with various settings and save it (resulting in a
1.5MB image), it takes 3 minutes to resize it.  Also, this does not
happen consistently.  A lot of the time, the edited images resize very
quickly, but a few of them are taking 3 minutes.

Any ideas why an edited image would take so much longer to resize even
though it's half the size of the original?

BTW, the reason I use the above code is because it results in the
highest quality resize.  I've tried a number of other ways and none is
as good as the above code.