Share Digital Photos Using Windows XP
Published: May 12, 2003
By Ed Bott, Microsoft Press Author and Expert Zone Community Columnist
Editor's Note: Past articles by members of the online community are archived for your use. The information may become outdated as technology changes. For the most current information, please search the Web site or post a question in the newsgroups.
Your new digital camera is good. Maybe too good, in fact. Even today's bargain-priced cameras offer default resolutions of 3 megapixels or better. At those settings, it's a snap to shoot spectacular-looking pictures that you can't resist sharing with friends and family. So what's the problem? Those gorgeous, in-living-color, high-resolution images translate into enormous files, often weighing in at a megabyte or more. If you attach one or more of those humongous files to an e-mail message, you're likely to cause chaos at both ends of the connection.
Here are just a few of the problems you're likely to encounter when you try to send digital picture files as e-mail attachments:
| • | Many e-mail accounts have size limits. Free Hotmail accounts have a limit of 2 MB, for instance. Internet service providers often limit mail accounts to 10 MB or less. You can fill up a friend's inbox with two or three large pictures, at which point he can no longer receive e-mail from anyone. |
| • | Big attachments take a long time to download. Not everyone has broadband access. And there's no telling what Uncle Joe will have to say about you when he discovers that it will take an hour or more to download your pictures over his pokey dial-up connection. |
| • | Not everyone has a compatible image viewer. Up-to-date versions of Internet Explorer automatically scale oversize images so they fit in the browser window. But recipients who are still using older browsers and low screen resolutions may find themselves scrolling (and scrolling and scrolling) to see pieces of the image. |
The solution? Shrink those images so they're e-mail friendly or find an alternative way to deliver them. In this column, I'll show you a well-hidden feature of Windows XP that does the work automatically, point you to a Windows XP PowerToy that lets you easily convert a folder full of files, and offer some alternatives to e-mail for sharing photos.
Use Windows XP to Shrink Pictures
You're probably used to dragging images directly from Windows Explorer into a new message window. When you do that with Outlook Express or Microsoft Outlook, the attachments ride along at full size. Next time, let Windows XP shrink the pictures for you. This feature is built-in and remarkably effective. To make photo files smaller automatically, follow these steps:
1. | Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the My Pictures folder (or to a different folder, if that's where your pictures are stored). |
2. | Select one or more image files. |
3. | In the File and Folder Tasks pane (see Figure 1), click E-mail this file (the text reads E-mail the selected items if you clicked more than one image).  Figure 1 |
4. | In the Send Pictures via E-Mail dialog box, click Show more options to display the choices shown in Figure 2. (Note that the first image you selected appears in the preview area in the top left corner of the dialog box.)  Figure 2 |
5. | The Make all my pictures smaller option is selected by default. Click one of the three sizes from the list at the bottom. The smaller the size you select, the smaller the resulting image file. |
6. | Click OK. Windows XP switches to your default e-mail program, creates a new message window, and attaches your greatly-reduced image files. Add e-mail addresses for your recipients, type a short message, and send. |
This option can shrink file sizes dramatically, compressing them by 90% or more. For simple on-screen viewing, you and Uncle Joe won't notice any compromise in image quality.
Use a PowerToy for Bulk Conversions
Do you have a whole folder full of oversized image files? Instead of compressing them one or two at a time as you e-mail them, use the Image Resizer utility from the Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP to add this capability to the shortcut menu for any supported image file.
Download and install the Image Resizer executable (it's small). Then select one or more image files from any folder, right-click, and then click Resize Pictures. Click the Advanced button to see the full range of options, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
The Image Resizer PowerToy gives you two extra options for sizes: one that's ideal for display on a Handheld PC, and the other that lets you choose a custom size. If some of your originals are already small, click Make pictures smaller but not larger to avoid accidentally creating blow-ups of perfectly good small image files.
By default, the Image Resizer PowerToy makes copies of the selected pictures, placing them in the same folder as the original files. That's the safest strategy if you think you might want the high-resolution images later—to print copies that are suitable for framing, for instance. If you know you're not going to need those bulky originals, click Resize the original pictures (don't create copies). This option replaces the originals with your downsized versions.
Alternatives to E-Mail for Sharing Photos
Sending attachments by e-mail is fast and easy, but it's not always the best way to share photos. If you have more than a few images to share, consider the following alternatives.
Use snail mail. Yes, e-mail is more immediate, but if you want to send dozens or hundreds of photo-quality digital pictures, burning them to a CD is easier. Pop the CD into a cardboard mailer, add postage, and drop it in the mail. For a total cost of a few bucks, you can share the pictures with everyone in your family who has a PC. You can also rest easier, knowing that you have backup copies of your precious pictures.
Put those photos on the Web. No Web-authoring skills required. At MSN Groups, you can create your own online photo gallery that you can share with other people. Instead of e-mailing gargantuan attachments, upload the pictures, and send a link. The MSN Upload Control, shown in Figure 4, includes ultra-cool editing tools. Other sites, including Shutterfly and Kodak's Ofoto, offer similar services. As a bonus, anyone who views the site can order prints that are suitable for framing.
Figure 4
For more information about publishing photos to the Web, read Sharon Crawford's columns, Publishing Digital Photos on MSN Communities and Publishing Photos to Your Own Web Site, and Barb Bowman's Publishing Connection.
Make your own movie. If you're comfortable with Windows Movie Maker 2, you can create your own slide show from still pictures and save the resulting file as a video that you can burn to CD or send as an e-mail attachment. Expert Zone columnist Tony Northup explains how in Use Windows Movie Maker 2 to Present Still Photos. You can also use Photo Story 3 for Windows to create moving moments with your pictures. Photo Story adds elegant pan and zoom effects on your photos to create a rich video slideshow.
Expert Zone columnist Ed Bott is an award-winning computer journalist who's been working with Microsoft Windows for more than 15 years. His latest Microsoft Press books include Faster Smarter Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows XP Inside Out (with Carl Siechert and Craig Stinson).
