Lot's of digital cameras these days take multi-megapixel images. They look really good on the screen and are very large with lots of detail, but how do you get 'em on the Forum? The forum software has a 150K file size limit, so we need to learn to shrink those pictures down to size without degrading the quality if possible.
If you don't have a high-end program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, you can download a free copy of Irfanview here. It will allow you to resize your pictures, add a little digital compression to reduce file size, and lots more.
This tutorial will deal with resizing and compression.
Resizing
First I opened a picture of Rick Martin's GyroBee. I took this picture this year at Bensen Days. I used a 2 MegaPixel camera on hi-resolution which produced a 1600 x 1200 pixel image at 879 Kbyte.
We'll see about cutting that down to size.
You can see how large the picture is on the screen, so I clicked the 'Image' tab and selected the 'Resize/Resample' option on the dropdown menu.
On the Resize/Resample panel you have many options for resizing. You can select pixels or percentages, specify the image size, etc.
Or you can do what I did. I just selected the 640x 480 size on the right hand side. This will give you an image about 9 inches wide on your computer screen when it's set at 800x600 resolution.
Now you can see how it looks at 640 x 480. I'll also attach the final picture at the bottom of this post.
At this point you may want to use some of the other features in Irfanview like sharpen, rotate, add effects, etc. I hit this picture with the Sharpen option under the Image tab before saving it.
Compression
Once I had resized the picture to 640 x 480, I saved it to my hard drive. But it was still too large at 238 Kbytes, so I went back and saved it again but using the compression slider on the right hand side of the 'Save Picture As' panel.
Setting the slider on 100 will save the picture at best quality and no compression, like the first time I saved the above picture. I then set it at 90 and saved it again. This time it saved it at ~100Kb, at the same size, and hardly any artifacting. Artifacting is the little squiggly blobs you get on the edges of the the lines in a picture when you compress it too much. At a value of 80 on the compression slider I started to get some artifacting and the file size was ~70Kb. At a compression value of 70 the artifacting was more noticable and file size was ~55Kb.
I will usually use the least amount of compression I can to get the file size under 150Kb. But sometimes more compression is needed. Pictures will lots of bright colors take up more space that one with muted shades of predominately one color.
Play around with these settings and see what works for you. After a little practice you'll be able to resize, compress, and post 'em like a pro!
P.S. Here is the finished photo I used in the tutorial above.
If you don't have a high-end program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, you can download a free copy of Irfanview here. It will allow you to resize your pictures, add a little digital compression to reduce file size, and lots more.
This tutorial will deal with resizing and compression.
Resizing
First I opened a picture of Rick Martin's GyroBee. I took this picture this year at Bensen Days. I used a 2 MegaPixel camera on hi-resolution which produced a 1600 x 1200 pixel image at 879 Kbyte.
We'll see about cutting that down to size.
You can see how large the picture is on the screen, so I clicked the 'Image' tab and selected the 'Resize/Resample' option on the dropdown menu.
On the Resize/Resample panel you have many options for resizing. You can select pixels or percentages, specify the image size, etc.
Or you can do what I did. I just selected the 640x 480 size on the right hand side. This will give you an image about 9 inches wide on your computer screen when it's set at 800x600 resolution.
Now you can see how it looks at 640 x 480. I'll also attach the final picture at the bottom of this post.
At this point you may want to use some of the other features in Irfanview like sharpen, rotate, add effects, etc. I hit this picture with the Sharpen option under the Image tab before saving it.
Compression
Once I had resized the picture to 640 x 480, I saved it to my hard drive. But it was still too large at 238 Kbytes, so I went back and saved it again but using the compression slider on the right hand side of the 'Save Picture As' panel.
Setting the slider on 100 will save the picture at best quality and no compression, like the first time I saved the above picture. I then set it at 90 and saved it again. This time it saved it at ~100Kb, at the same size, and hardly any artifacting. Artifacting is the little squiggly blobs you get on the edges of the the lines in a picture when you compress it too much. At a value of 80 on the compression slider I started to get some artifacting and the file size was ~70Kb. At a compression value of 70 the artifacting was more noticable and file size was ~55Kb.
I will usually use the least amount of compression I can to get the file size under 150Kb. But sometimes more compression is needed. Pictures will lots of bright colors take up more space that one with muted shades of predominately one color.
Play around with these settings and see what works for you. After a little practice you'll be able to resize, compress, and post 'em like a pro!
P.S. Here is the finished photo I used in the tutorial above.
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