Me in my Clio...

[Neil.P]

Well it was going to be, but I don't know how to put pictures up on here
Ignore this post I better go back to the drawing board

Neil.P

[Neil.P]

Oh poo

Neil.P

[Wizzo]

Ha ha Neil have a look at Additional Options below where you type - then click browse to go to your pic. Any problems then e-mail them to me and I will post them for you, providing they are tasteful of course.

[Neil.P]

Thanks for the help Wiz. It seems after all this, that the picture is too big to put on here anyway never mind eh!

Neil.P

[johnbull]

Ok Neil. Lessons from an old fart.

Download something like imageshack. Web address is www.imageshack.us
Follow prompts on that. Click browse and choose your pic from your files. Choose size 640 x 480 and click on resize image. Now click on host it, and wait. You soon have a new page with the pic you want. Scroll right down to direct link to image, then copy and paste it in here.

But before you paste - Go to the icon above with the pic which gives you this  . Paste the pic from imageshack in between the two imgs. You should have a pic.

Good luck.

[Neil.P]

Thank you John, I'll give it a whirl!!

Neil.P

[Neil.P]

The picture I've got is 3.3 MB, too big for imageshack also. Thanks for the help though, I've now officially given up

Neil.P

[cosworth151]

You might want to try Google's Picasa. It's a free download:

http://picasa.google.com/

Just use the "export" button and used the slide bar to get the pix down to the size you need. It also has some nice editing, retouching and album features. I use it and I passed it along to The Stig a while back.

Cos

[Chameleon]

.oO(Oh jeez, am I going to have to start a graphics file workshop...?)

Forget Picasa and all the other rubbish peddled to beginners.  If you want to manipulate image files it's best to have either PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro but there are free graphics programs that do the simple jobs like resizing and compressing for the web.  Best of these is IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com/), billed as an image viewer but it has several manipulating capabilities as well.

What you need to do, Neil, is resize the image - it's unnecessarily huge and the monitor just shows it at  half size or less because it can't fit it all in.  Download and install IrfanView, then open your image file with it (Irfan also has an excellent Browse facility - it calls it Thumbnails - too to help you find the image you want).  Then go to Image in the menu and click on Resize/Resample.  This will take you to a dialog box where you can set the size in pixels of the image.  Make sure the box titled Preserve Aspect Ratio is checked (ticked), then change the Width setting in Set New Size to 400.  This is plenty big enough for viewing on a monitor and won't give you huge file sizes.  Click on OK.

Then Go to File in the menu and Save As.  Choose to save the file as a JPEG and, when the box with Save Options comes up, set the slider to about 80%.  Give the file a name and save it.  Bingo, you have a teensy little graphics file that still looks great. 

[cosworth151]

The problem isn't that the image is too large, it's that the file size is too large. This site has permits up to 4 attachment per post. Maximum attachment size allowed is 250 kb. Merely adjusting the image size will not necessarily accomplish this.

I would agree that Picasa has it's limitations, but it is free and easy to use. That makes it very useful for people who just want to adjust a file size and maybe crop and tweek their pix a bit. I have several packages for manipulating digital images, and I still use Picasa for certain tasks.

As for it being for beginners, I set up my first home darkroom in the early 70s, about the same time I started writing computer software.

Cos

[Chameleon]

Adjusting the image size is the first step in getting filesize down, Cozzie.  Sure, if that's all you do, it won't have a massive impact.  But there's little point in having image sizes that are bigger than the monitor can display - so we might as well shrink the blighters to a more usable size to start with.

The real filesize shrinkage occurs when we save the file and with a JPEG or a PNG we can play with the controls to get it down to the precise size we want or make a reasonable compromise between filesize and quality of image.  If Neil uses the parameters I suggested, his problems should be over.

I was thinking in terms of filesize too.  In my world, 250Kb is far too big for an image file - nothing gets on my site that's bigger than 40Kb as I have to think in terms of speed of loading and function.  In fact, it was only recently that I increased my allowed upper limit from 20Kb to 40Kb, figuring that broadband is so common now that I'd probably not cause too many problems.  Yet the quality remains good enough for the web - which means good enough for me since the images won't be viewed anywhere else.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that anyone didn't know their graphics stuff - I'm sure that plenty do.  It was just that I am very used to being dragged into what become graphics tutorials by people who really don't know what they're doing - I was tired (still am) and was hoping it wouldn't develop into that.

As for Picasa, I tried it briefly when it came out, was totally put off by the "friendly" interface and judged it harshly.  No doubt it has capabilities I never discovered but I wasn't prepared to look behind the shiny and pretty face to find them.  I like my apps to be straightforward, clear and effective - no nonsense, in fact.  Obviously, it's a matter of taste... 

[Neil.P]

Thanks for all the tips fellas!

Neil.P

[cosworth151]

No offense taken, Cammy. Didn't mean to sound gruff. A little bit of west coast jet lag.

One of the biggest parts of my job is designing systems to be used by non-computer people, so I guess I look at it from that angle.

[johnbull]

I could do with a few lessons.

I have to keep asking my son and daughter to get me out of it every time I goof.

[Chameleon]

Cozzie would be the obvious choice if it's a programming problem, John.  I tend to use my son for that kind of thing - he's a web developer (designed and built my site) so he saves me having to get my head around some of the more obscure stuff.

Graphics are my thing - that and preparing them for the web.  I started with computers using Win 3.11 so I'm fanatical about filesizes and speed.  These days a lot of web designers throw Flash and all sorts of goodies at the page, thinking that we want everything to look nice - we do, but we also get fed up with sites that slow the computer to a crawl.

So just throw the questions into the room - someone will pick them up, I'm sure.