compressing files

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richard

I have some photo files that I would like to compress so that I can
email them.

I have XP Pro and wonder how I might compress these jpgs. Is there a
program already in Windows to do this or do I need to get a program. If
there's one in Windows, how do I use it?
Thanks
 
I have some photo files that I would like to compress so that I can
email them.

I have XP Pro and wonder how I might compress these jpgs. Is there a
program already in Windows to do this or do I need to get a program. If
there's one in Windows, how do I use it?
Thanks
Click to expand...

Windows XP includes compressed folders, although jpg images are already
compressed and don't generally compress much further. You might try
resizing them smaller instead of compressing them.
--
Tom Porterfield
MS-MVP Windows
http://support.telop.org

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup only.
 
If you're looking for something simple, you might want to take a
look at the Image Resizer tool that is part of the Microsoft
Power toys. It's available here (listed on the right towards the
bottom of the page):

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

Once installed, you can right click on the image you want to
email and select "Resize pictures" from the menu. Click on the
Advanced tab on the box that pops up to see more options.

Nepatsfan
 
XP already has an option...

Windows can resize pictures you send in E-mail so that they transfer faster
and are easier to view by the recipient.

To send a photo in e-mail
1 Open My Pictures, and then open the folder containing the photo you want
to send in e-mail.
2 Click the photo you want to send.
3 Under File and Folder Tasks, click E-mail this file.
4 In the Send Pictures via E-mail dialog box, click Make all my pictures
smaller.
Windows makes a smaller photo file and attaches it to an e-mail message
that displays a default subject and text message.

5 In the To box, type the e-mail address of the person to receive the
picture, change the subject and message text if you want, and then click
Send.

Notes
• To open My Pictures, double-click the My Documents icon on your desktop,
and then double-click the My Pictures folder.

• Use this procedure for photos of file size greater than 64 kilobytes (KB).
To check the file size of your photo, right-click the file, click
Properties, and look at Size.

• To send the photo without reducing the size of the file, click Keep the
original sizes.

• To change the settings for the size of the image, click Show more options.

•If you have many pictures to share with others, you can publish them to the
Web instead of sending them in e-mail.

To publish pictures and documents to the Web
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...cs/en-us/webpub_pictures_documents_howto.mspx
 
Wesley said:
XP already has an option...

Windows can resize pictures you send in E-mail so that they transfer faster
and are easier to view by the recipient.

To send a photo in e-mail
1 Open My Pictures, and then open the folder containing the photo you want
to send in e-mail.
2 Click the photo you want to send.
3 Under File and Folder Tasks, click E-mail this file.
4 In the Send Pictures via E-mail dialog box, click Make all my pictures
smaller.
Windows makes a smaller photo file and attaches it to an e-mail message
that displays a default subject and text message.

5 In the To box, type the e-mail address of the person to receive the
picture, change the subject and message text if you want, and then click
Send.

Notes
• To open My Pictures, double-click the My Documents icon on your desktop,
and then double-click the My Pictures folder.

• Use this procedure for photos of file size greater than 64 kilobytes (KB).
To check the file size of your photo, right-click the file, click
Properties, and look at Size.

• To send the photo without reducing the size of the file, click Keep the
original sizes.

• To change the settings for the size of the image, click Show more options.

•If you have many pictures to share with others, you can publish them to the
Web instead of sending them in e-mail.

To publish pictures and documents to the Web
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...cs/en-us/webpub_pictures_documents_howto.mspx
Click to expand...
All goes well until I get to the point of reducing the size of the
image. Then I get an error pop up asking that I send the report to
Microsoft. I tried several times--closing McAfee and making the files no
longer read only, but nothing helps.
Any ideas? The size of the file I experiment with is 840kb. It's a photo
off a cd I got from Wolf Camera.
 
richard said:
I have some photo files that I would like to compress so that I can
email them.

I have XP Pro and wonder how I might compress these jpgs. Is there a
program already in Windows to do this or do I need to get a program.
Click to expand...

Size of JPGs are depending on two factors: Resolution and compression.

Resolution is the number of pixels and colors used. Photos are usually in
real color, i.e. 24 bits, and since one byte is 8 bits then one pixel takes
up 3 bytes. Thus a picture from a 4 megapixel camera takes up 12 megabytes
in uncompressed form.

This uncompressed picture is then usually compressed using JPEG. The thing
with JPEG is that it is a lossy compression algorithm. This means that when
you compress the picture, details are taken out to decrease size. So once a
picture is compressed to JPEG, it cannot be uncompressed to an excact
replica of the uncompressed original. How much detail is lost is depending
on how much you want to compress it. Usually this is a parameter between 1
to 100.

I am not aware of any built-in tools in Windows that lets you alter both of
these factors. However, there are plenty of free alternatives. A simple
viewer program, such as XNView or IrfanView (both come highly recommended),
let's you resize your pictures and save them with different compression
ratios. They are also capable of converting a whole bunch of pictures in a
batch operation, so you don't have to do the tedious work manually on
hundreds of pictures.

How much you wish to compress may depend on personal preferences, but for
mailing you can get by with resolutions between 1024x768 - 1600x1200. You
should probably keep compression between 30 and 70. A 1600x1200 (ca 2
megapixels) JPEG picture with compression level 50 should take up little
more than 100 kB. But with lower resolution and higher compression you can
easily get pictures in 50 kB or less, still with more than good enough
quality for on-screen viewing.
 
André Gulliksen said:
Size of JPGs are depending on two factors: Resolution and compression.

Resolution is the number of pixels and colors used. Photos are usually in
real color, i.e. 24 bits, and since one byte is 8 bits then one pixel takes
up 3 bytes. Thus a picture from a 4 megapixel camera takes up 12 megabytes
in uncompressed form.

This uncompressed picture is then usually compressed using JPEG. The thing
with JPEG is that it is a lossy compression algorithm. This means that when
you compress the picture, details are taken out to decrease size. So once a
picture is compressed to JPEG, it cannot be uncompressed to an excact
replica of the uncompressed original. How much detail is lost is depending
on how much you want to compress it. Usually this is a parameter between 1
to 100.

I am not aware of any built-in tools in Windows that lets you alter both of
these factors. However, there are plenty of free alternatives. A simple
viewer program, such as XNView or IrfanView (both come highly recommended),
let's you resize your pictures and save them with different compression
ratios. They are also capable of converting a whole bunch of pictures in a
batch operation, so you don't have to do the tedious work manually on
hundreds of pictures.

How much you wish to compress may depend on personal preferences, but for
mailing you can get by with resolutions between 1024x768 - 1600x1200. You
should probably keep compression between 30 and 70. A 1600x1200 (ca 2
megapixels) JPEG picture with compression level 50 should take up little
more than 100 kB. But with lower resolution and higher compression you can
easily get pictures in 50 kB or less, still with more than good enough
quality for on-screen viewing.
Click to expand...
Thanks for all the good information.
 
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