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Camera Icon Digital Photo Basics
  1. Pictures from Camera into Computer
  2. Getting Acquainted with Irfanview
  3. Basic Terms: View Size vs Print Size, etc.
  4. Virtually Free Photography - Naming Pics, Albums
  5. When Digital Camera Photos Can't Be Found
  6. Digital Photography for Not So Digital Seniors
   Crop, Resize, Align, Colors
  1. How to Crop and/or Resize a Photo
  2. Problem Enlarging Digital Pictures
  3. Understanding CYMK & RGB Colors
  4. How to Straighten (Rotate, Align) a Photo
  5. Darkrooms Replaced by Computers
  6. Be Your Own Photo Processing Studio
   Text in Pictures
  1. Adding Text to a Photo
  2. Text & Picture In a Word Text Box
   Displaying Your Pictures
  1. Printing Multiple Photos on a Single Page
  2. Displaying Your Photos as a Slideshow
  3. Printing Photo Thumbnail Sheets
  4. When Multiple Photos Don't All Fit on a Print-Out
  5. Print Yourself or Have Pics Processed Elsewhere?
   Online Images - Emailing Pics
  1. Reducing a Digital Photo's File Size
  2. Red X Instead of a Picture
  3. Reducing the File Size of a Video
  4. Print Yourself or Have Pics Processed Elsewhere?
  5. Copying Images from a Web Site or an Email
   Pic Formats - File Extensions
  1. Digital Picture Formats (JPG, BMP, GIF, TIF, etc)
  2. Difference Between "Drawing" & "Painting" Programs
  3. Digital Cameras & Megapixelss
  4. Choosing File Associations for Picture Files
  5. Understanding "Animated GIFs"
  6. Comparison of JPG and GIF Photographs
Don Edrington Since 1980: Helping Seniors Who Are New to PCs
Computer Tutor Don Columns Appear in
The Californian & San Diego's North County Times

Counter-Top Juke Box


Reducing a Digital Photo's File Size

A reader recently wrote: "How do I reduce a 2-megabyte JPG photo to a few hundred kilobytes? I don't want to resize the picture; just make the file size smaller so it can be emailed as an attachment more easily."

Well, it's helpful to understand why digital photos are usually saved in the JPG format to begin with. There are file size choices that range from very small to very large (lower quality resolution to higher quality resolution). Surprisingly, going from a high bit count (hi-res) to a lower bit count (low-res) often results in an image that shows little discernable difference in quality.

Various image-editing programs have different ways of letting you adjust the bit count, but my favorite is Irfanview, which is a free download from www.irfanview.com.

Open a picture in Irfanview, go to File>Save As, and choose JPG from the "Save As Type" list. A sliding "Save Quality: (Best to Lowest) bar will appear that displays a percentage number as it is moved.

Experiment with different percentages to see how small you can make the file, yet maintain an acceptable image.

IMPORTANT: be sure to change the file name with each attempt (such as Mary1.jpg, Mary2.jpg, Mary3.jpg, etc.). Always retain a copy of the original image with its name unchanged. If the original's file size is reduced and then saved with the same name it can NOT be returned to its previous status. This is why JPG is known as a "lossy" image format.



    Free - Picasa
  • A very handy free program for editing and organizing photos is Picasa2 from Google. Get it at picasa.google.com/download.
    Free - Irfanview
  • Another handy free program for editing and organizing photos is Irfanview. Get it at Irfanview.com.


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    Contact Information on Don Can Be Found Here.