I think the best way to handle this is to make a copy of your original picture, and then reduce the size of the copy to something like 640×480. Then prepare that image to include in your e-mail.
Or maybe just a little smaller than that so folks using the 640×480 resolution on their monitor don’t have to scroll to see the image in its entirety.
Good call, Nancy. I have become so accustomed to running in higher resolutions that I can’t even imagine why anyone would ever want to use a computer in 640×480 mode. But I guess there are still some people, including those with visual impairments, who may require the lower resolution.
Dave Buren,
made a mistake on my numbers in earlier post, meant to say 800×600 screen res.
One would accomplish this by;
* image is open
* go to Image>Resize>Image Size
* make sure the boxes are checked for constrain and resample * change only ONE variable, such as typing in 600 if the image is in landscape orientation OR for a portrait orientation type in only 500 for the height
* OK this
* depending on the aspect ratio of your image, you may need to crop a little * to crop a bit; use rectangular marquee tool, set to Fixed size, enter the desired dimensions (one of them will already be correct from doing the image resizing), click on image in workarea, drag the resulting box to position it, go to Image>Crop, use SAVE FOR WEB and choose the quality of jpg you desire.
whoops, double posted, I erased it
Jim,
My monitor doesn’t go below 800×600, I didn’t know the lower one existed!
I think it depends a lot on your video card. I’m using Windows 2000 here at work with a 17 inch CRT, and I can reduce my resolution to 640×480. I can’t remember what my lowest resolution is at home.
Dave,
….and, after you save that image as the jpg. When you OK that, you will be back to the .psd (presumably .psd) on your workarea. Since you probably don’t want to have your image permanently smaller, like the jpg dimensions, when asked if you want to save changes, answer NO.
I have 640 X 480 listed as an option on this laptop, too. Egad, I can’t imagine running it at that!
Jim,
You’re probably right about the video card. When I ordered this computer I had them put in a 128 DDR ATI Radeon 9800, which was quite expensive.
Thanks to all, esp. Nancy for the good advice. I use a rather lame MS PictureIt which automatically converts any size file to a standard 460 x 680 email attachment. Too bad PSE doesn’t allow flexibility for auto converts. Thanks again.
If you use the Batch Processing option, one of your choices is to "Convert Image Size". I have used this to convert a number of images to an appropriate size for use with e-mail. Using the batch processing, I have just output the resized files to a new folder, and it has worked quite well for me. You might consider looking at that possibility.
Dave,
One other thing, as a word of caution. Ordinarily you wouldn’t want to have the "Resample" box checked when you resize any image. When one uses resample, the pixels are either discarded or artificially augmented in number and permanently change that file. This is the desired intent for creating an image for email, but counterproductive to maintaining the best quality of an image destined for print. For print, an image is resized without the resample function by changing only one variable in the Resize box. One would change or make sure the resolution of the image is between 200-300ppi (which keeps all the pixels). Without resample checked, resolution and printed output size are inversely proportional.
Nancy
edit—a good read about this is at <
http://www.scantips.com>
Dave
A question about MS Picture it. Does it save files in .MIX format? I have someone that sends me files for my challenge in MIX and for the life of me I can’t convert them.
g.
Grant, irfanview wont do it ?
Jodi
Nothing will do it 😉 I have Elements, Photoshop, Corel + PhotoPaint, PaintShop Pro, IrfanView, ACDSee and a few others and … nothing … I do have a copy of MIC and that wretched graphics program that came with full version of Office, maybe I should reinstall them.
G.
Dave,
If you use Windows XP you can e mail and convert size right from the file.
Just go to where the file is stored and click on it. Options are listed on the left side. Click e mail this file, then windows will ask if you want to resize to fit e mail or keep original file size.
Pete
I also see it listed as a "Power C Object File"
"Microsoft Image Extensions (MIX)
The MIX format (.mix file extension) is the Microsoft PhotoDraw native file format and can display millions of colors. It maintains all the objects in the image separately, allowing you to edit the individual objects when you reopen the file. (Other file formats "flatten" all the objects into a single object.) Currently, it is only supported by PhotoDraw, but you can save to other file formats, including all of those listed in this article."
Maybe you could request the person to save it in another format.
Nancy
It is indeed a Microsoft Image Extension and I can now view a thumbnail of it in Word,, thanks to James Hutchinson, but that is the limit. I do keep requesting and the translated file is sent back to me but I would like to be able to do this at this end as I want to encourage people to take part in the challenge.
g.
I can’t help with the .MIX file, but for e-mail attachments I use the "Save for Web…" option. This allows me to tailor the picture to my intended receipient, be they on dial-up or broadband.
It also has the benefit of creating an OS-neutral file that doesn’t contain a thumbnail or other meta-data.
HTH
Kyle
You are absolutely the most obliging man I have ever known.
