Preparing Your Pictures
for this site or for sending by e-mail
Why?
Today's digital cameras take pictures at high resolution - and high resolution means large file sizes, often in excess of 1.5 Mb. Processing in Photoshop or other applications further increases file size.
You want high resolution for printing, and within your computer, this is fine and reasonably quick. But large, high-resolution pictures take a LONG time to send - or download.
On-screen viewing does not require high resolution, but poor technique can lead to poor picture quality.
(Al Friend) Here's what I do:
NOTE: Remember that picture size on-screen is measured in pixels, not inches.
In Photoshop Elements:
- Make any adjustments you want to in exposure, color balance, saturation, etc.
- Go to Image\Resize\Image size.
- Be sure Constrain Proportions and Resample Image are both checked.
- Under Page Dimensions, change the larger dimension to:
- 500 pixels (e-mail) or
- 320 pixels (gallery).
- Click OK. The picture will look very small on-screen - that's OK.
- Go to File\Save for Web.
- Select jpeg format and low-quality. Click OK.
- Complete the Save-As process.
This gives me pictures of about 5-15 kB for 'Our own work' and about 20-25 kB for e-mail.
If you have a method that works well in your application, please send it and I'll get it on the site!
Last updated 01/08/08.
