Web-size your Photos using MS Paint

With the introduction of ever larger camera resolutions, we're starting to see photos that are two and three times wider than our screens. These are coming in our emails and are appearing on some websites. It is important to remember that a large percentage of users are still on dialup and they simply can't view images that are overwhelmingly huge. If your photos are taken strictly for web use, then set the camera to its lowest resolution setting, preferrably under 1MP. The higher settings are there for making prints.

Making your Photos Smaller

Most cameras come with some sort of image editing software. Use that software to resize the images to something that is comfortable for viewing on a web page.  400-500 pixels across is pretty good for most images and is about half a screen width. When saving the resized image, look for the compression or quality setting on the "save as" screen and set it in the middle if it used words like good better and best. If it mentions "compression" then use something between 10-25% and if it mentions "jpeg quality", use a number between 75-85%. That setting will help make the file smaller and faster without affecting the dimensions of the image.

If you don't have any image editing software for your PC, there are two other methods for resizing images. One is to use your mail program and the other is to use MS Paint on your PC.

The MS Paint Method

1. Go to your "My Pictures" album on your computer.
Right-click on a photo and farther down the menu, select "Open With" and choose "Paint".


2. Within Paint, select "Stretch/Skew" from the "Image" menu.

  

That will open a dialog window, where you will change both vertical and horizontal stretch % values at the same time. They must both be the same number. A smaller value will make a smaller image. If a photo was taken at the 3MP or 4MP setting, you might try 10% or 25% to see how it looks.


  

If it doesn't look right, then click the UNDO option, and repeat step two using a different value.


  

3. When the image looks about the right size on your screen, save the image to a new name, and be sure the "jpeg" option is selected in the dropdown list on the save screen.


 
4. The new smaller photo can then be uploaded to your online image host.

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