How To Resize Pictures

[Frank Hagan]

You want to upload pictures to the forums, but find out they are too big to be accepted. We have a maximum of 300kb file size to prevent the forums from getting too bogged down with large pictures.

Do it with "stuff" you probably already have

If you have photo editing software that came with your digital camera or scanner, it probably has a way to reduce the size and resolution of your image to no larger than 3 x 4" and 100 dpi. That's "fine enough" for use in forums because your monitor's resolution is only about 72 dpi. Draw a rectangle on your screen 3 x 4" in size, and you'll see it takes up a good part of the screen. So even though it would not look good printed out on paper, it will look fine in the forums. It may also have a way to compression the image if it is .jpg, .gif or .png ... you'll have to experiment to see the best compression ratio that won't degrade the image much, but you are usually safe with 20 - 30% compression.

Do it with Robert Cohen's Freeware Program

Robert Cohen is the programmer who wrote our little "QuickStart" program for our hosting customers, and he has a nifty freeware utility at http://rcmedia.town-local.net/software/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=9&Itemid=2 that will re-size, compress, and even prepare an image for email. You can also save it in its new, smaller size for upload into our forums.