How To Make Your Photos Smaller
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Digital cameras, including phone cameras, have truly come into their own. Millions of people now take pictures and save them to their computers. From there, photos can easily be sent by email or added to a web page.
However, there's a problem that virtually all digital camera users eventually encounter. The images are too big!
The problem comes down to pixels. Pixels are the tiny bits of data that form digital images. The size of your photo is defined by two things:
1. The picture's width and height in pixels.
2. How many pixels per inch (ppi) your software & monitor can display. This is their "resolution".
Web pages and email programs can only display 72 pixels per inch. However, most digital photos have a much higher ppi than that. The only way that your email software or web browser can display all those pixels is to make your image so big that the resolution comes back down to 72 pixels per inch.
This doesn't change your photo in any way. It's merely a display issue.
If you're emailing a picture, and you want the recipient to be able to print a nice copy of it, then just attach it, send it and forget about how big it looks inside the email program's window.
If, on the other hand, any of the following is true, you'll need to reduce the number of pixels:
- The recipient doesn't need a high-quality version of the photo.
- You can't email a message that big.
- The recipient's mailbox isn't big enough for the file.
- You want to put the photo on a web page.
- When you try to print the photo using your photo software, it's still too big.
So, how do you resize your photo?
Google's Picasa photo organizer is free software that runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. You can find instructions for resizing photos here.
If you use Windows, you may also want to try a free graphics viewer called IrfanView. It enables you to change the size of your photos, as well as many other things, like batch photo conversion and processing. Go to this link to download the latest version.
When you've finished installing IrfanView, go to this tutorial. It will take you step-by-step through how to make your image smaller. Make sure that you don't alter your original photo. Always make a copy and create the new version of your image from that.
Microsoft also provides a free image resizer as part of their PowerToys for Windows XP. Click on the 'Power Toys' tab, and look for Image Resizer.
Most Macintosh users already have what they need built into the operating system. If you use Tiger (10.4) or Leopard (10.5), compose a new message in Mail, attach your photo, and look for the 'Image Size' dropdown box at the lower right corner of your message. There, you can choose small, medium, large or actual size.
If you use the Panther operating system, use iPhoto. Simply select the photo you want to send, click on the Email icon at the bottom of the window, and choose your photo size. When you click the "Compose" button, a new email window will open with the smaller copy of your image already inserted.
If you use the Tiger operating system, this feature is built directly into the Mail program that comes bundled with it.
If you need a photo resized for a webpage, just follow the resize instructions for email, then drag the photo to where you need it after it's been modified. This won't change your original photo unless you try to move the modified photo to the same directory as the original.
Good luck! Now that you know the secret, pass it on.
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