E-mail Pictures

It's one of my most commonly asked questions: "How do I put pictures in
e-mail?"

First, we're going to look at getting the picture to be an appropriate
size for e-mail. After that, we'll actually insert an image and send it.

Image Size

Have you ever gotten a picture via e-mail that was WAY too big? Or maybe too small? Sure, some e-mail programs let you set the size you want the picture to be, but that's not the best way to do it. Who wants to download a 10 meg picture file that should have only been 10KB?

What's the "right" size? Well, that depends on the photo. Most monitors display at 72 dpi, so if you want the picture to be 5 inches wide (probably about the biggest you would want for an e-mail message) the picture would be 360 pixels wide (5 inches x 72 DPI).

So, how do you make the picture the right size? By using your imaging software. (Most scanners and digital cameras come with some sort of imaging software that will let you resize images.)

Open the picture up in your imaging software and resize the image to your desired resolution. You can usually do this via an "Image" or "Edit" menu. Your menu style and commands may very depending on your software.

Usually you'll get a screen that lets you input the image size in pixels. If there's a checkbox that allows you to constrain proportions, make sure that's checked (this insures that when you change the height or width the picture remains proportional).

That should do it. Since you've changed the picture size, you may want to save it under a different name. Use the Save As command under the File menu of your imaging software.

WorldStart Computing Guides
WorldStart Homepage