Wisdom is the principal thing

Whether you want to send an email, upload to the net or simply make more room in your mobile or mp3 memory…knowing how to compress an image file comes in handy.

Smaller files means that they can be shared across the internet faster. On a website it means faster download. For social networking, it means a faster upload. Either way, it is more convenient.

Some people worry about the loss of quality of the image. That is true. Some of the original quality is lost – however this is not usually noticeable unless you try to blow the image up to a greater size. If the purpose is to be viewed on a computer screen, then compression is for you!

So how do we do it? Most computers come with some sort of image editing software. For the purpose of today’s topic I’m using ‘Microsoft Office Picture Manager’. It isn’t the flashiest of editors, but it is great for novices.

(Click on each image to enlarge)

First, locate the image you wish to compress and right click on it. Hover over ‘open with…’ on the menu to reveal your image editor ‘Microsoft Office Picture Manager’. Click on it.

Your image will open up in the manager. Locate ‘Edit Picture’ in the top tool bar (highlighted in this picture) and click on it.

A menu will pop up to the side of your image. Click on ‘Compress Pictures’.

 In this new menu you are given a few options. ‘Don’t compress’ obviously does what it suggests – nothing! The other settings scale the pictures to sizes to suit that medium. I suggest only using ‘e-mail messages’ if you don’t want to send high quality photos to friends! I find the ‘Web pages’ option usually suffices when using email/social networking. ‘Documents’ obviously gives even greater quality.

Under the heading ‘Estimated total size’ it will show you how big your image file is. If you are sending one photo via email, 316kb is not too bad. However most cameras will take photos of over 1Mb – that is far too big to send via email (unless someone is planning on printing off the photos!). If you are sending holiday snaps – keep them between 100-300kb. The more you send, the smaller the file size should be for each.

Press okay to have a look at the size (you can always press undo!)

 The picture editor will show you your changes.

 Once you are happy with the size and quality, press save. PLEASE NOTE!! I suggest you save an original copy of your loved photos before you edit them. I have indeed before, without thinking, saved a compressed version of a photo for a friend only to realise that I had in fact overwritten the original! L

Voila! Your compressed picture is now ready for its journey into cyberspace!