Friends

Learn HTML now!

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Resizing Pictures

I consider myself a bit tech challenged so when I learn something new I like to pass it along. It is unusual for me to do two of these type posts so close together though!

I recently joined WeRelate to share some of my genealogy online. One of the features that I liked was the ability to share pictures. I ran into a glitch when I kept getting an error message that my images were too large. I tried the various programs that I have on my computer, all of which were free downloads and therefore lacking in features. I came up empty in an online search for information. Then I found something about how email programs resize pictures. I tried sending myself files as both attachments and as images and the image feature made them much smaller. (I used AIM mail) When viewed online you can't see any difference so I was set for WeRelate.

Today I was blog hopping and I came across this at Robin's Nesting Place and I had an "Oh, duh!" moment.
I posted on November 11, about my Picasa account. I had reached approximately 70% of my storage space in seven months and had duplicates of many pictures on Picasa. Annie in Austin, graciously looked at my blog to try to figure out my problem. She saw that my pictures were about 80% larger in pixels than those on her blog.
I am not as close to using up my 1g of free space at Picasa as Robin is but I have been concerned about having to pay for an account in the future. With three public and one private blog, all sharing the same Picasa account, I have to run out of space or start deleting pictures from older posts sooner or later. Her method of resizing pictures may work for you (and be sure to read the comments) so check out her post. I am not to the point where I plan to go back through all of my posts and change the pictures that I have already added but I will be smarter about uploading my pictures in the future.

After you email yourself the pictures that you want to post to resize them you have to save them again which is a real pain in the neck so decide what pictures you want to use before emailing them. To save them from your email, right click on a picture and chose "Save Image As." Make sure you insert a file name. I added "resized" to the end of the file names I chose so I can quickly tell which picture is which.

I will also be reusing pictures whenever possible. Sometimes I post the same picture on both a public blog and the private, family only blog. At Apple's Tree I use the same dividing bar over and over again and in the past I uploaded it for every post. The easiest way for me to reuse a picture is to go to the post where I used it before and go to edit post and then click on the Edit Html tab. Then I highlight and copy (Ctrl+C) the code for that picture and paste (Ctrl+V) it in the new post. This is much easier to do if you have multiple tabs or windows open. (I have had mixed results when using the url for the picture from Picasa but you may have better luck with that option than I have.)

I was a bit concerned that having pictures of different file sizes would make my slideshow look funny so I resized the first two pictures and included them. It made no difference in how they appear.

So does this really save enough space to be worthwhile? This first copy of the picture below takes up 785kb and the second one only 25kb!!!! I can't see any difference, can you?




If you have any other tips to make my free space at Picasa last longer please share them!

7 comments:

  1. Hi Apple. I'm getting really geeky these days with web and graphics design. I love it.

    A great resizing program is Irfanview. It's free. Do a search for Irfanview download. You'll probably find it at CNET or download.com. Once you have Irfanview all downloaded, start the program.

    Once you have it open, below the area where it says "File" you'll see a picture of a little open folder. If you hover your mouse over it, a balloon will say "Open." Click it. A new window will pop up, asking you what you want to open. Find the picture you want (let's pretend you have a photo of Nikki on the Desktop). You'd go to the Desktop until you see Nikki.jpg. The photo should open in Irfanview. No, go to where it says "Image" in the menu bar (you know, File, Edit, Image, Options, etc). A menu will drop down. Choose "Resize/Resample." A new window will pop up, asking you what size you want. For now, since you are new, you can choose something easy like "Half." Obviously, this will make your picture twice as small. Click "OK." The picture will immediately change.

    Now you need to save the newly sized picture. If you want to make your photo of Nikki permanently this small, choose "Save." HOWEVER if you want to keep that larger picture of Nikki for your files, but want a smaller version in your email or uploaded on the web, choose "Save As" and rename the photo (for example, "Nikki small"). Irfanview by default saves the images as jpegs. As you become a more advamced user, you can tinker with settings and make all sorts of files.

    I'm sorry this was so lengthy. If you want more help, or other tips, I'm very happy to help. Email me at mrsmecomber (at) verizon (dot) net.

    I have PaintShopPro and have made some cool banners for some folks for their blogs. If you need banner help or template help, let me know. I also have a huge listing of programs at files at mrsmecombersscrapbook.blogspot.com.

    Have fun!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry.. I mistyped "No, go to where it says "Image" in the menu bar (you know, File, Edit, Image, Options, etc). A menu will drop down."

    OOPS that should not be "no" it should be "now." Sorry if that was confusing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mrs. Mecomber,

    Thanks for the help. I'll download the program later today and check it out. I won't be going anywhere with the weather we're expecting later!

    I've tried to comment twice on your 1st snow post without success :( It's pretty now but I will tire of it very quickly. The snowblower and roof rake are ready to go!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm sorry to hear that you couldn't comment on my blog post. Is there something wrong with my blog that I need to fix?

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is an interesting subject Apple, and I'm amazed, after reading Robin's post, that there are so many different methods used for uploading photos to our blogs. I resize in Adobe Photoshop7 and use Picasa to send photos to the blog.
    I've certainly clicked some links since I first read this post...and learned a few new things too. Thanks for sharing :)
    Did you read about Riley and Max? I couldn't help but think about you and CG when we found out our mistake. I knew you'd both get a chuckle out of it, having met them 'in person' :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Apple, thanks for expounding this topic. Did you try Irfanview? If so, how did it work for you?

    So far, I think I'll stick with Flickr since I have free unlimited storage through my internet service. I've gotten the hang of it now so it isn't that difficult anymore but I'd love to find something with fewer steps.

    I'll also continue to clean up Picasa as I have time, so far I've gone from 70% down to 60%. It's such a pain.

    I hadn't been on your personal blog before, just the My Sister's garden blog, so it took me a little while to find your picture resizing post.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Kerri,

    I laughed out loud when I read about Maxine and Ginger. I was sure I left a comment but it could have been one of those times my browser crashed. I've got a glitch someplace :(

    Robin,

    Sorry about the blog confusion. I sometimes don't know where best to post on a topic like this.

    I'm hoping to have time to play with Infanview this weekend, if I'm not working. If Mrs. Mecomber recommends it I'm confident that it will work fine for me but I will try to do a follow up. For WeRelate the picture files have to be very tiny.

    I only have the free flickr account so I haven't used it for blogging much. I should check to see if my internet provider has any special deals with a photo hosting site. I love the flickr tool that lets you label parts of your pictures so that you can can see the label when you scroll over the picture. I use that for recording what's where in the garden and for identifying people in old family photos.

    ReplyDelete