Resizing images (page weight)

[Guest]

I'm a fairly compu savvy guy, but for some reason I haven’t found an easy way to reduce the file size of images that I would like to upload here or in general. I use both Windows and Mac and my camera takes 4 megapixel photos, which make for large files. It seems like there would be a million and a half easy ways to skinny the filesize down to upload the image to place that has file size restrictions.

I have found how to decrease the actual image dimensions and sometimes that reduces the file size enough, but frequently I tinker with it for a while, never get it quite small enough and then just punt.

What’s the trick?

[mgraham333]

For JPG images, your graphics program should offer you some form of compression. Usually these options appear during the SAVE process. Many programs offer a slider control with Image Size at one end and Image Quality at the other.

You can usually get away with about a 10% compression or 90% quality without too much distortion.

www.irfanview.com offers a pretty decent image viewer/editor.

[WD45]

If you are just looking to shrink some things, Easy Graphic Converter works wonders. This will shrink huge files effectively without much loss. You can have the image resized to a target size as well. And it is free!

Edited April 26, 2006 by WD45

[BERIGAN]

The goofy ass way I do it is to right click on the image, go down to send to/mail recipient, then it says windows can resize the image to mail faster, I make it smaller. I then mail it to...myself then grab the image from the sent folder, and drag it to the file I have the larger image into. I know, it's horseshit, but it's the way I do it....

[Robert J]

I use Irfanview all the time at work and at home for resizing. Its the best free thing around.

[Guest]

I don't have admin rights to my machine at work, so I can't install anything here. I'll get something at home. I've been meaning to put GIMP on my mac and learn to use it, but just haven't had time.

I'm really surprised that every image viewer and editor doesn't have this function, but they don't seem to. Sometimes I've had luck by converting things to .bmp's then back to .gifs, but that's hit and miss and a little wacky.

When I click "send to mail recipient" it doesn't prompt me to resize, but what that tells me is that somewhere in the Windows OS that function exists, but I just haven't found an interface to it yet.

Why do things have to be so hard? You guys should see what I'm not sending you....