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Digital Camera Thoughts.


I received a photo via e-mail and it's far too big - how do I make it smaller?

How many times do you get a photograph by e-mail and it's so big you can only see about a quarter of it on the screen at any one time?

My guess is more than once, and more often these days than a couple of years back.

The reason is relatively simple - digital cameras are becoming better and are costing less to buy. They are capable of taking bigger and better pictures.

So what's the problem?

On the very early digital cameras, the ones you and I could afford, the picture resolution was nominally 640 x 480 or there abouts.

Some were even as low as 320 x 240 pixels. So on your current monitor, which is maybe set at 800 x 600 for display size, one of these pictures will easily fit on the screen with room to spare.

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   As at 2002, the newer range of digital cameras commonly provide for more than one resolution, with the higher of these being in the order of 1280 x 960, or even 1600 x "something". This means they'll be about twice as wide and twice as deep as your screen can display in one 'helping'.

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This means you'll have to scroll across and down the screen to view the picture, except for those using Internet Explorer 6® which will allow for picture resizing if it is bigger than will fit within the normal display setting.
Taking a photograph at a higher resolution has certain benefits especially if you are wanting to print the picture on good quality paper. Alternatively, you could be in a situation where you can't get close enough for a good shot, or your 'zoom' will not enlarge enough either. In this case by taking the picture in the highest resolution available you have the option of later cropping the section you want to retain and still have a useable picture size.

My recommendation:
Use a lower resolution for pictures that are going to be used solely for updating friends and relations on your activities. (640 x 480 ?)

Use your best resolution where you intend printing or cropping the photograph. (1280 x 960 ?).

Picture saving/sending format: Some cameras save in .BMP format and others use .JPG format. If your camera saves in .BMP format then something to consider when e-mailing a picture is to maybe reduce the file size by changing the format from .BMP to .JPG. This can reduce the file size dramatically - like from maybe 700K as a .BMP to 70K as a .JPG (that's 10% of the size). You can use one of the many graphic editing programs to do this.

See also: How do I make the picture smaller afterwards? Check this page.

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