Different ways to
Make Digital Photos Smaller

Thinking of sending an email with photo attachments? Then it's best to make your digital photos smaller first.

Otherwise, the recipient will wonder why her emails are taking forever to download.

So, how do you make digital photos smaller? You can do that by using a photo editing software to reduce the pixel dimensions of your photos.

Here's an example using Adobe Photoshop. Are you using a different photo editor? If so, the menus might be slightly different, but basically these are the steps in resizing digital photos:

1. Launch your photo editing software. Open the digital photo you want to resize.
2. Under the Image menu, click Image Size (it's Resize or Resample in other software).
3. Type in the new values for the width and height of your photo. Or if you like you can adjust the size by percentage. Just click the drop down menu that says 'pixels' and choose percentage instead.
4. Check Constrain Proportion (or Lock Aspect Ratio in other software) so that when you change the width, the height is automatically calculated. This prevents the distortion of your new photo.








5. Click Ok.

Your digital photo is now smaller.

Batch Editing and Emailing

What if you want to resize a folder full of digital photos? Are you stuck to opening and resizing them one by one?

Not if you use Image Resizer.

Note: Image Resizer is a Windows XP PowerToy. PowerToys are small programs created to add more features for Windows XP.

So how do you use Image Resizer?

1. First, download and install Image Resizer from http://download.microsoft.com
2. Next, go to the folder containing the digital photos you want to resize. Select these photos. Click ctrl-A if you want to select all the photos contained in the folder.
3. Then right click a photo. Click Resize Pictures from the menu that pops up. It's the fourth one on the list.
4. Now, select a size. The default is Small (640x480 pixels)








5. If you want a different size from the list, then click Custom and enter the size you'd like.
6. Click Ok.

Copies of smaller digital photos are now placed in the same folder.

Here's a tip...

Notice the two checkboxes above? Check the Make pictures smaller but not larger if you already have small pictures in your current folder that you don't want to resize to the new pixel dimensions.

And if you're sure you won't need the original pictures, then you can check Resize the original pictures (don't create copies) so the new small photos will be of the same filenames as the original. Your original photos will then be overwritten.

Using Windows Explorer to make digital photos smaller

Did you know that there's a shortcut in Windows XP to make digital photos smaller and send them through email?

Try this:

1. Go to the folder containing the digital photos you want to send, and select these photos.
2. Under the File and Folder Tasks menu on the left side, click Email the selected items.
3. Windows will ask if you want to resize your pictures. The default choice is Make all my pictures smaller. And the size is 640x480 pixels. Select the size you want, and then click Ok.






Windows will launch your email client with a new message where your resized photos are attached. Click Send to send your email.

What if you're not using Windows XP? No problem.

There are other software to make digital photos smaller. An example of which is a digital photo organizer. If you're using one, check if it has a batch resize option.

For example, in Picasa just select your digital photos then click the Email button located at the lower part of the window. Picasa will automatically make your digital photos smaller depending on the settings you specified in the Tools Options menu. Next, it will also launch the email client you've chosen.

Anyway, did you know that aside from emailing purposes, you can also make digital photos smaller before posting them on your website or inserting them within your documents?

This will greatly reduce the file size of your documents and make viewing your photos easier. You won't have to scroll left and right, top to bottom to view large photos.


Tip for sharing an album full of digital photos

If you want to share dozens of digital photos and looking for alternatives to using email, then you might be interested in uploading your digital photos to online albums instead.

This way, you don't have to make your digital photos smaller before you can share them to others. Just upload your digital photos, share these albums, and invite others to view your photos online.



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