Help sending digital photos

[Camping Coxes]

I got my new digital camera and was able to figure out pretty quickly how to get the pics from my camera to my computer.  I have them stored in the "My Pictures" section of Windows.
 
If I E-mail them to someone, they come across huge and take forever to upload/download.  How do I get them to automatically resize if I'm sending them as an attachment?  This has to be simple, but my simple mind doesn't know how to do it!
 
Thanks in advance for your help.

[ForestCreature]

Unfortunately, you'll have to manualy change the picture size (shocking isn't it)
Use whatever photo editing program you have (most cameras come with fairly easy to use editors) and resize it, then save it as a copy. That will preserve the origional picture size for printing.

Most important is to enjoy using the camera!

[AustinBoston]

ForestC has most of it right.  

The first thing I would add is *ALWAYS* make changes to a *COPY* of the photo.  If you (or your computer) messes things up, you can go back to the original.  If you are working with an original, once you mess it up, it's messed up.  BTDT.

There is one other thing you can do, and that is to compress the photo.  If you are using the .jpg format (most point & shoot cameras and all photo editors do), you can use JPG compression.  If you turn up the compression level (usually somewhere in the photo editor's "Save As" dialog box), the file will get smaller.

There is a limit, however.  The JPG compression standard works by taking out some of the detail and artificially re-creating it when it's opened.  The JPG standard will let you compress until the final image looks like absolute garbage.  The only way to tell is to do the "Save As", close the image, and open it again.  (The copy your editor will show you is the un-compressed version, so you have to close it and re-open it.)  If it's not good enough, you have to go back to the original image (remember, you have to work from a copy) and use a lower compression level.

Something you have not asked, but will come up eventually, is how to organize your photos.  When you discover that it costs almost nothing to "shoot another picture," you will likely start shooting - a lot.  How do you keep track of all those picture files?

I do mine by date.  So I have a 2003 folder, a 2004 folder, a 2005 folder, etc.  Within the 2005 folder, I have folders named 01 January, 02 February, etc.  Then they are by date & subject within that, so the 08 August folder might have 03 At The Beach, 07 Cookout, 15 Stillwater, 15 Taylors Falls, etc.

By labeling the days by subject, you don't have to go wading through lots and lots of folders of images to try to find the one image you are looking for, that you know was "sometime last fall."

There are other ways of organizing, and hopefully others will post their approach so you can find what works best for you.

One last thing - make backups.  Hard drives crash.  Poof go your pictures.  I can get from one to three months of photos on a CD, depending on how much I've been photographing.

Austin

[campingcop]

You might want to concider one of the many web based picture storage(i think thats what there called) like snap fish,web shots were you can upload your pictures and then let you freinds relivative etc. know were they are and they can view them with out you having to send them out, and if they want copies they can order prints or download them.

This is of course if they have a computer, if you want you could also burn them to a cd and mail the pictures that way.  I know that there are programs that will allow you to burn pictures to a cd that will play on a dvd player.

hope this made sence to you.

[SkipP]

AB has most of it right:D.
 
You got a few options. The first...and least desired...is to simply "crank down" the resolution of the camera. Much smaller file size (and you can get a gazillion pics on a card) but the down-side is the pictures are useless for anything other than sharing on the web. I don't recommend doing this but it's handy for a quick snap to share with others.
 
Another option is a Photo-Editing program like Adobe Elements 3.0 (4 is out now). You can open a pic in there and go to "Save For Web" to get a properly sized pic that won't make the recepients mad at you if they have dial-up.
 
Your camera probably came with some sort of editing program and you can do the same thing with it as well. Open the program, then open the picture. Go to Image > Resize and then set the "DPI" (or resolution) to "72". Make the picture about 6 inches on the long side (or, about 640 pixels/inch... this will give you the equivilent of a 4 x 6). Save this as a copy and you'll have the original and the re-sized version.
 
One thing to remember is that sharing a photo at anything higher than about 72-80 dpi is purely waste...a normal computer monitor can't tell a difference between 72dpi and 300dpi but your computer and internet connection sure can!  
 
AustinBoston has an excellent suggestion in saving pictures by date. Adobe Elements (3.0 and higher) will do this for you and you can even view it as a timeline when searching for pics.
 
Enjoy the camera!

[lhuff]

Go to Start-My Pictures. If you have the pictures separated into folders (you should consider it if you don't) go to the folder with the picture you want to send and select (highlight) the picture. Look on the left side of the dialog box for a section (usually second one down) named "File and Folder Tasks". If the little chevrons to the right of the "File and Folder Tasks" title are pointing down, click on them once to open the list of tasks. Click on "E-mail this file". This will open a dialog box titled "Send Pictures via E-mail". Choose the "Make all of my pictures smaller" option and click OK. It should open a note with the picture(s) as attachments. Address the note and add your comments. The pictures will send as small attachments. This WILL NOT effect your original picture(s), just the copies that are being sent.
 
 
This assumes Windows XP, but previous versions had similar options. They may just be worded differently.
 
Hope this helps!! Happy New Year and have fun with the new camera.
 
Larry
 
P.S.  A word on storage.  I have just completed organizing our 11,265 pictures.  I found a few things helpful.  If you are looking at a folder of pictures, you need to make sure it's a picture folder for all of the benefits.  Right click on the folder, choose Properties and then the Customize tab.  Under "What kind of folder do you want?", choose a picture template.  I always use "Pictures (best for many files)".  You can also choose a folder picture on this screen if you wish.  It dresses it up a bit.
 
Go into a picture a folder and choose View-Details.  You will see your pictures listed by name along with size, type and date modified.  Left clicking on any column header will sort by that column, but right clicking will show a partial list of other things you can see.  Click on "more" to see the complete list.  Put a check mark by "Date Picture Taken" and OK for a quick way to get the date (you guessed it) that the picture was taken.  
 
I organize the pictures into folders by event.  Sometimes we can't remember the year at our age.  So, I have a folder in the "My Pictures" folder named Christmases.  In the Christmases folder I have "At the Fosters 2005-12-18" and "At the Fosters 2004-12-19" and "At the Huffs 2005-12-17" and so forth.  That way I can sort by the event and date.  I have a similar setup for Camping and many other events we do repetitively.  It makes it pretty easy to find a picture.  If my wife asks for a particular picture of a grandson at a Renaissance Festival, I'll as if she remembers which year it was.  She won't remember since we go each year, but I can quickly look through the Renaissance Festival pictures and find it.  HINT:  Use View-Thumbnails to see small pictures to help you find a particular one.
 
Well, I hope you find this beneficial.  I'd better go check the DW's camera.  By now we probably have more cat pictures to organize ;-)

[Camping Coxes]

Go to Start-My Pictures. If you have the pictures separated into folders (you should consider it if you don't) go to the folder with the picture you want to send and select (highlight) the picture. Look on the left side of the dialog box for a section (usually second one down) named "File and Folder Tasks". If the little chevrons to the right of the "File and Folder Tasks" title are pointing down, click on them once to open the list of tasks. Click on "E-mail this file". This will open a dialog box titled "Send Pictures via E-mail". Choose the "Make all of my pictures smaller" option and click OK. It should open a note with the picture(s) as attachments. Address the note and add your comments. The pictures will send as small attachments. This WILL NOT effect your original picture(s), just the copies that are being sent.
 
 By now we probably have more cat pictures to organize ;-)

In playing around I finally figured this out!  It was there all the time!  I tried it out by E-mail some of my dog pictures to a friend here from PUT.  Funny, that dog is who we take most of our pcitures of (at least until softball and swim seasons start next month!)
 
Thanks to everyone for your help.  Great advice about organizing and backing up.  I had already started doing similar things with the disks I'd get from Sam's Club and all the pictures from tournaments, etc. that we take of our kids' at sports.  I hadn't thought about backing up in case of a crash.  Great idea.

[southpennrailroad]

Using photobucket, a free on line storage photo site, allows you to up load your photos and then gives you three optons to copy and paste to any given choosen site for you to either link or even add the photo to this site.

This view is showing the east face of the Laurel Mountain along the abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike at turnpike mile marker 101.3. The new 1968 opened and now used turnpike section is seen in the distance.

[MAC]

To arrange your photos try Picasa 2, it works great. It is a free down load.