Before you EXCITEDLY send out those pictures to the email boxes of all your contacts, PLEASE do them the favor of REDUCING the image file sizes via web optimization using your graphics software.
Sending digital camera (or scanned) images via email without without "pruning" their file sizes by optimizing them for viewing on the web, can sometimes create problems for the recipient. For instance (1). His / her email inbox gets clogged because pixs Attached to your email are huge. (2). Where s / he has access to Yahoo! 's unlimited storage, time required to view EACH image still present a potential problem. Web users are not patient people plus, NOT everyone Using broadband! That 's why I wrote this article - tutorial titled "Make It Easy For Others To View Your Pictures - Optimize Them For Display On The Web Before You E - mail Them!
Three Web-Relevant Graphics File Format Acronyms And Their Meanings
In case you are unfamiliar with the subject of graphic file formats, I provide brief descriptions of the three main graphic file formats used on the web, and which I have mentioned at least once in the body of this article:
a). JPEG means "Joint Photographic Experts Group": useful for displaying "photographic or continuous tone" images.
b). GIF means "Graphic Interchange Format": useful for displaying images with large areas of flat colors (eg logos, icons, and navigation buttons).
c). PNG means "Portable Network Group": An improved replacement format for GIF.
I Now Describe How You Can Proceed Below, By Making References To A Personal Example
1. Load the graphics editing software on your PC (if you have none, ask around for advice from people who know, about which one to buy - and where it will not take you long to find someone who can help).
Note: in this example, I use Adobe Photoshop 7.0 .
2. Click "File - Open" in Adobe Photoshop, then use the "open" dialog box that appears, to navigate to the folder / location of the image (s) you wish to optimize.
Note: In my case, sometime ago, it was a JPEG graphic of the front cover of my ten ways manual (the Self-Development Bible (TM)) that I had had for screen printing onto T-shirts I intended to print for sale locally. The initial file size was 1.8 MB approx.
I call it up into Photoshop using steps 1 and 2 above.
3. Once it opens, I click "File - Save For Web ..." on the main menu and a "Save For Web" dialog interface appear.
4. Looking at the "Settings" panel to the top right, I notice that the JPEG setting (which can be any one of four possible settings for "desired image quality": "low, Medium, High & maximum) is currently set to" Maximum ".
A display on the bottom left of the image reads "JPEG (indicating the image file format), 1.653 M (indicating the displayed image size), 603 sec @ 28.8 Kbps (estimated estimated image download / view time at 28.8 kilobyte per sec internet connection speed).
Remember: It is as as as possible to download the image size (& by implication the download / online display time)
You need to understand graphics file formats and when it is best to use each one, press F1 in photoshop and click "search" on the browser based help interface that appear, then type "About file formats", and click "Search" He said.
Also there is a link that leads to the right offers ___ ___ ___ 0
Explore the links and you should soon be familiar with why JPEG is often the preferred format for web optimization of photographic images etc.
Note: Another way to learn about when different from graphic file formats (such as JPEG, GIF, and PNG) and when best to use EACH is to do a search on the web.
5. Next I click the graphic file formats selection drop menu So I check the bottom left display which now reads: "JPEG (for image format), 339.9 KB (for the optimized image & # 39; s size), 133 sec @ 28.8 Kbps (for the optimized image download time at 28.8 kilobyte per sec internet connection speed).
Doing a quick calculation, I am pleased to discover that MASSIVE 81.7% file size reduction (from 1,800 KB to 339 KB!) Using this quick and easy process, without impairing displayed image quality .
Rather than slam their mail boxes with 10.8 MB worth of picture attachments, they will only have to contend with approximately six files totalling 2 MB altogether (!) - each But it & # 39; s actually likely to be BETTER than that due in reality, the simplest / most basic net connections today run at 56 kbps and higher, so that it would actually take 60 seconds or less to view the optimized images!
6. Next I click the "Save" button "Save Optimized As" dialog box drop menu, add "_optimized" to the default filename of the image and click "Save" to store the new image to the desktop, where I will later find it and send it as an email attachment to an acquaintance for his comments.
It is nothing really exact same dimensions, so nothing really is lost - at least to the human eye, which is the benefit of the lossy compression format called "JPEG".
Summary
Many people come online in a bid to quickly check their their mails or find some information or upload some data etc. Quite often, this problems them to have little time or patience to "WAIT" for top - heavy web pages or "fat" images to download.
As a result they tend to be "click-happy" - that "click away" to do other more pressing things (possibly promising themselves they will come back another time to view the lovely pictures - but often "forgetting" to do so).
If you really want people to take time to look at the pictures you send out to your email boxes, make the extra effort to optimize those pictures (for any good graphics application) for quick / easy display on the web.
Most good graphics editing software will offer something similar to Adobe Photoshop 'Save for Web' tool. Play around with your program a bit, read up the instructions provided in the Help section, and you should soon be up to speed with making your pictures / images web optimized and viewer-friendly :-)
