Paul, another approach to your dilemma is to use the Save for Web function, which should be subtitled "Save for E-Mail". It will allow you to reduce the pixel dimensions of the image to 800 pixels by 600 pixels (or thereabouts) as suggested by Nancy, and then change the ‘Quality’ (amount of JPEG compression) to give you an image size in the range your dial-up correspondents would like to see (generally less than 200 MBytes). Using Save for Web, you can have your cake and eat it, too – you Save for Web with one name, then do a regular Save for the base image at full dimensions, preserving the pixel dimensions needed for a good print.
Chuck
Paul,
This subject has been interesting to me. The people who have responded know more than I about this subject. I do believe that the software on the receiving end makes some difference. Irfanview simplified things for me as receipient.
However, I have a MAC and may have an easier solution for you. Do you have iPhoto? I have iPhoto 2. When I asked Apple Help a similar question, they answered my direct question, then said I just use iPhoto. If you pick the picture you want to send, then click email, you have a choick of 4 sizes from full to 240×320 pixels. Its a one step simple move then write and send. Viewed on my MAC I get a picture I see full view (or almost) on the email itself. Viewed on my wife’s Windows unit with Irfanview as the preferred choice, the full size arrives as an attachment that will open full screen in Irfanview, the small size arrives as a small image in the email itself. I think if you have iPhoto and play around with the email function, you can find a simple solution. On the other hand, if you work through one of the other ways, you will learn a lot about the various sizing of images. The scantips reference is first rate. I bought the book offered there and like it a lot.
I think Barbara is around here somewhere this morning, I just followed her on another post, and she probably has something more to say that will help. I would appreciate hers or any other comments. Barb?
Hope this helps
Carl
Hi, Carl. Well, I agree with Chuck. If you are sending a photo for onscreen viewing, save for web is by far the best way to get a good image at a reasonable size. For one thing, just saving as a jpg keeps EXIF data in the file, which is useless here.
The thing to remember is that you really don’t your image to be more than 600-700 pixels wide unless you know the person you are emailing has a giant monitor. Otherwise, they will have to scroll to see it all. So if you use save for web, then go to the "new size" box on the lower right of the screen and enter a horizontal dimension in the 400 to 600 pixel range with "constrain proportions" checked and click "apply" you can get a very good quality image at a small size.
The very important thing, though, is that after you click okay in the save for web box, you want to do a command (control) +z for the original image, or close the original image and click no when it asks you to save or you will have resized your original as well as the email copy.
Hi Barbara, Paul,
Maybe I’m missing something, but having done it both ways, using the email feature of iPhoto seems a simpler way of emailing photos. I click on the photo I want to send, click on email, choose from 4 sizes (one of them is 640×480 pixels which gives me a jpeg of about 100 kb), write any note and send. This seems the simplest and quickest to me giving an equivalent result for most situations. Am I missing something? I wish I had had something that simple when I was just starting (I know I am leaving myself wide open on that statement-so be it-I have the back of my wrist permanently attached to my forehead in the "woe is me" attitude).
Having said that, I generally use the method you and Chuck describe because I usually want to edit the image in PSE 2. I want to at least do the quick fix for rotation and contrast, and almost always cropping. Then save for web as described for an image of no more than 800 pixels largest edge and about 100 kb in file size.
Thanks
Carl
Hi, Carl. No, you aren’t missing anything. If you have the latest version of iphoto it works great. I was just mentioning a way to do it within PE. I don’t have a digicam, so only a few photos ever get into iphoto for me.
I just don’t use it that much, especially since my previous computer only had a 770K hard drive so I’m used to getting everything backed up and off the machine as soon as I’m done with it rather than having an archive on the disk.
To all: 7 responses in less than 24 hours. Using a combination of Leen,Nancy and Chuck was successful before the others arrived. No iPhoto, but will use other suggestions.
First time digital user and spend hours in the PE book with no indications like Nancy pointed out. Also, first time Forum user and very impressed. Looks like good reading. Many thanks
Leen, I have one modest issue with your recommendation, and it has been emphasized by my new camera, which has a 3/2 aspect ration instead of the standard digicam 4/3: I try not to completely fill the frame, because cropping to standard sizes might cause me to lose some important image information. As an example, my camera takes the equivalent of an 8-by-12; if I fill the long side with image and then try to crop to an 8-by-10, I’m out of luck. For my other camera, with its 4/3 aspect ratio, a standard 4-by-6 must be cropped out of an image that’s 4.5-by-6. So yes, I want to get as much in the frame as possible, but no, I don’t want to fill all the way to the edges if I’m going to be forced to print standard sizes. Does that make sense/
Chuck
Chuck, I didnot think of that. You ‘re right.
However, as I’m making a living out of photography, I often don’t use standard sizes. Usually I produce an image the way it lookes best and cut a matte to make it fit into standard frames.
This way I will be able to sell larger frames. ;-))
Leen
Leen,
As an old traditional darkroom printer, I’ve never let a little thing like standard paper sizes hinder me.
I’m used to doing it your way — produce the image the way it looks best and cut a matte to make it fit into a standard frame. I’ve also been known to get some molding and make a custom sized frame from time to time.
Bob
Leen, with you and Bob and Rich all on the same wavelength, I can only do one thing: trash my concern about standard sizes and go with whatever the image requires! Now I’ll have to learn to cut a matte or two….
🙂
Chuck
I’m another one who crops images so they look best rather than fit a standard size. While I do try to frame correctly in camera, I often find that I don’t frame tightly enough to get a really snappy picture – so I often find myself cropping in Elements afterwards. I’ve really got to work on the in-camera composition.
Susan S
Susan, I’ve really cycled on the cropping thing, from trying to create something decent out of a small portion of the image (when I’ve been too far away for the limited zoom on the G2) to something that fills the frame (and occasionally spills over when the in-camera image and what’s downloaded are slightly different). the former is okay until I try to print, in which case the pixel-deprived image just doesn’t work; the latter may be okay if I haven’t inadertently chopped off something really important to the image, but I’m not very good at discerning that. So I just keep trying, and a few images survive…
Chuck
