File Compression

[firegod48]

Hello all,

I am new to the forum as well as digital photography. I am the proud new owner of an EOS 20D. When I upload the files to my PC they are HUGE, how can I compress them without losing any image clarity as to send them via E-mail?


Thanks in advance,

Matt

[Scottes]

Resize them to about 400x600 pixels (kinda small) or 600x900 and then save as JPG. Irfanview is a free viewer which will do an excellent job.

[robertwgross]

Matt, when you shoot, the images are saved as either RAW or JPEG. If you want to, you can email a JPEG file. However, if you email the entire, full resolution JPEG, you might be bothering your recipients.

You have options. You can cut down the resolution of the JPEG as shot. I don't like to.

You can get the full res shot and resample down the resolution. Or you can resave the JPEG with a lower (JPEG) quality.

What I do is generally a combination of the last two. I resample a TIF image to get it down to about 1.5MB, and then I do a JPEG on that. It will produce a file of 100KB or something in that range, which is what some people want to see.

---Bob Gross---

[Jim_T]

You must have got Photoshop Elements on a CD packed with the camera.

Open the image with Elements..

Choose Resize -> Image Size

Make it something that will fit in your recipients screen.. 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768

All you have to worry about is changing the pixel dimensions.. Disregard the inches and Pixles per inch in the 'Document size' section..

[firegod48]

my elements disk isn't loading. I am trying out infranview right now.

thanks again for the help

[Jim_T]

Just re-reading your post.. I might have jumped the gun on the answer because digital images have TWO sizes.

1 - The pixel dimensions (ie 3504 pixels by 2336 pixels)

2 - The file size in bytes (ie 3 Megabytes)

Just so I understand.. Do you want the image dimensions to be smaller, or do you want the dimensions to remain the same, but the file size to be smaller ?

If you just want the file size smaller and you have JPG files, then don't change the pixels, just choose 'save as' and add more compression.

If you've been saving RAW files as TIF, then switch to JPEG.. It compresses far better than TIF.

[tim]

Try and get elements loaded, it's a great program. If it has "save for web", use that instead of "save as", my feeling is it makes for smaller files (that's a feeling not a fact i've tested).

[RodneyCyr]

If you are running Windows XP, you can download a free set of "Windows Power Toys" from Microsoft. One of the "toys" is a picture resizer. After installing the "picture resizer", right-click on a picture and choose "resize". You can also resize a group of pictures by selecting all of them and right-clicking one of them.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

[CyberDyneSystems]

Save a COPY as reduced fro emailing...... not the original..

[musthavemuzk]

Save a COPY as reduced fro emailing...... not the original..

i was gonna say this same thing
be careful to not overwrite your original image

Monty