Easy ways to resize digital photos for e-mail

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	BEST SOFTWARE[/size][/font] Easy ways to resize digital photos for e-mail[/size]
	By Ian “Gizmo” Richards Modern digital cameras take great photos, but the multi-megabyte size of each digital image often makes the photos too large to send as e-mail attachments. Free software can work just as well as commercial tools for reducing the size of the photos and, with just a few mouse clicks, can prepare hundreds of images for easy e-mailing.[/size]

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The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/2010/01/28/05 (paid content, opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.[/td]

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There is a free program called Shrink Pic which detects when one is attaching a photo to an email and automatically resizes it for sending.

http://www.onthegosoft.com/shrink_pic.htm

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Picasa from Google also has a resize function that is very easy to use.

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I use Microsoft Picture Manager to batch process resizing when I have a bunch of photos to send by e-mail. It’s bundled with MS Office and shows up in the Start Menu under Microsoft Office Tools.

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Picasa from google automatically resizes sends of more than one picture. The details are easily modified.
Pictures may be sent from within picasa via gmail or outlook or other programs.

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If you own a Nikon camera from the last 6 or so years, it came with photo organizing softare. The recent chronology includes NikonView, PictureProject, and most recently ViewNX. All these programs have a batch resizing feature.

I think the same is true for Canon cameras. The most recent program I have is ZoomBrowserEX. It can export resized photos but I don’t know if it works in batch.

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Two excellent programs for downsizing and upsizing are onOne Software Genuine Fractals and Alien Skin Blow Up.

DJ

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Great article Gizmo, I used the Image resizer in XP and loved it. (it makes a copy and doesn’t fart with the original). Now that I have Windows 7, I was missing that feature. not anymore thanks to http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/

Thanks again
Al 🙂

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Thanks Gizmo, good column, I’ll be trying “image Resizer” for Windows 7 64 bit.

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How about posting a link to the original pic so that we can test other resizing progs and see how they compare? (Paint Shop Pro, for example, provides 5 resizing methods.)

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ACDsee does a good job of resizing images – even though v6.0.3 isn’t supported for Vista or Win7 it still seems to work fine. http://www.acdsee.com is the site and I use the old version since the newer ones are more clumbsy or whatever. Can resize based on percentage, size in pixels, or actual/print size and will still reserve the aspect ratio. You can also just do the width or the height. For further options Remove/replace orginal files, rename modified images and place in source folder, or place modified images in a new folder. Can preserve last -modified dates. A lot of other options too.

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Hi Gizmo, love the articles!!

I use MS Office Picture Manager for all my photo resizing, AND you can batch resize as well! I can change contrasts, crop photos, rotate and flip, and remove RedEye effects, as well as resize and compress. Most of these options allow customising, and don’t become permanent until the file/s are saved.

Cheers
DaveO

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I like to use Photofiltre which has a freeware version. It has many of the features of Photoshop.

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I use a different method to resize a picture for email. I just display the picture in something like Picasa, size it, and use a screen capture program (Gadwin) to save a copy of the smaller picture to a folder. That way I have a copy of the smaller picture and it also makes it much easier to preview the picture before I send it.

Regards,

Lyle Hatten

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Try Microsoft Office | Microsoft Tools | Microsoft Office Picture Manager

If you’ve got SnagIt Editor installed, you have still more options.

I’ve also used Paint and Picassa but MS Office Picture Manager is most used.

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How to Compare Two Pictures Closely to See Their Relative Quality

When trying out different compression settings of JPEG pictures during their resizing (for use on a web site where file size & download speed are important, for example) you may want to compare two pictures closely to see their relative quality.

You can open two windows with different versions of the picture in each and look back and forth between them. However, a much better way to compare pictures is to ‘blink’ between them.

You can put the two pictures in adjacent tabs of a web browser and alternately click the two tabs. The two alternating pictures appear in the same location in the browser’s window — and any differences between them jump out at you as you click. Very subtle evaluations of picture detail and sharpness can be made this way.

You can blink between the two pictures a bit more easily if you use keyboard shortcuts to view alternate tabs. I have the Firefox AddOn / Extension ‘Tab Mix Plus’ installed in Firefox and I can use – and - to rapidly switch between tabs. Documentation on the web indicates that this should also work in Firefox without Tab Mix Plus installed. Internet Explorer uses – and – which requires a bit more manual dexterity.

‘Blinking’ was the method used to discover the dwarf planet Pluto. A mirror and shutter arrangement alternately displayed first one and then another (small area of) a photographic negative of a region of the night sky taken on different nights. The stars remained in the same location in the two photos, but tiny Pluto jumped between two locations because it had moved, and was easily seen — once photos of its correct location had been taken.

http://en.wikipedia….link_microscope has a picture and description.

(My other favorite keyboard shortcut in Firefox is . It alternately maximizes and restores the Firefox window — but eliminates the menu bar, address bar and tabs when it maximizes the window, showing as large an amount of a web page (or image) as can fit onto your screen.)

(And for those of us who have trouble squinting at tiny text, or want to an image a bit larger, [/color]- (or the easier - on the same key) and - control the text (and image!) size in both major browsers. - (that’s a zero) resets the text size to 100%. All three of the keys are next to each other, so they’re easy to remember.)

Regards,

Hal Lane

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This article says:

“Windows gives you two built-in ways to resize photos. You can use Microsoft Paint as a basic image editor. Even simpler, use Windows Explorer to navigate to the photo you want to e-mail. Right-click the photo and choose Send To, Mail Recipient on the context menu. However, no batch conversion is available with either of these methods, and they support only a limited number of image formats.”

If you mean by “batch conversion”, more than one picture at a time, then I believe you may be wrong about the Windows Explorer right-click method. It will resize as many pictures as are selected and attach them to a new email ready to send. It also provides three different sizes to choose from if you click “Show more options” before clicking OK.

Jack Capehart

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This article says:

“Windows gives you two built-in ways to resize photos…

If you mean by “batch conversion”, more than one picture at a time, then I believe you may be wrong about the Windows Explorer right-click method. It will resize as many pictures as are selected and attach them to a new email ready to send. It also provides three different sizes to choose from if you click “Show more options” before clicking OK.

Jack Capehart

Brilliant!. Thank you. 🙂

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Hi all,

For those who use Microsoft Outlook, one handy feature is the capacity of resizing even pictures already attached to a message. Just go to “Attachment Options” (in Outlook 2007 by click on the right donw arrow by the “Signature” icon) and select the screen size of all attached pictures. Conversion will take place when you click send.

Walter

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Tried “image Resizer” and dumped it in favor of the one in MS paint. Much easier to use.
Image resizer doesn’t seem to offer the ability to change both ht. and width in equal proportions simultaneously while changing just one.

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