Computer Tips 

Resizing Your Photos

Have you ever sat in front of your computer, waiting and waiting for a seemingly endless email to arrive? When it finally finishes downloading, you curse the sender, for you found the email contained a number of overly large photos. Not that you minded the photos so much, but you wished they were sent to you smaller.

Resizing photos is not as difficult as it might seem. To do this, we use and    recommend a free program called Irfanview. Irfanview is simple and easy to use, and is available for download from our website. In this column, we will be using Irfanview to resize our photos, so you will need it installed on your PC to follow along. Just go to www.mcsyarraman.com.au, and click on the Downloads link. Click on    Irfanview385.exe, and the program will be downloaded to your PC. Then double click Irfanview385.exe to install the program.

You can resize your photos for a number of reasons. This goes for both digital photos and print photos you have scanned using a scanner. Some of these reasons might include because you want to send a photo to friends via email. Another might be because you want to use the photo when creating a website. Another might be to make it fit on your desktop as a background. Whatever your reason, Irfanview makes the task very easy.

For now, we will resize a photo for sending via email. To resize your photo, go to where you have the photo stored on your PC. This might be either My Pictures or My Documents, or maybe even on your Desktop. Once you have the photo you want to resize, double click it, and if Irfanview is installed correctly, the photo will open up in that program. You will only see part of the photo, because of its large size.

Now click on the Image menu at the top, and then click Resize/Resample. This will open another window with different picture sizes already set. Depending on your reason for resizing, your photo can be 1024 x 768, 800 x 600, or 640 x 480. If you are sending the photo via email, then 640 x 480 would be a good choice. Select the size you want then simply click OK.

Now click the File menu, then Save As. Clicking Save As is very important, for if you click Save, you will overwrite your original file. What you want is to create another name for your resized photo. After clicking Save As, name your file, and click Save. Now you have your photo a smaller size.

Irfanview can also be used as a slide show. To do this, double click the photo you want to view. The photo will only partly appear. Now press the Enter button. Immediately the full photo fits within the size of your screen. Now use your right arrow button on the keyboard to scroll through any more photos you may have in that folder. To exit the slideshow, just press the Escape key on your keyboard.

Next issue we will explore more things you can do with your photos using Irfanview. If you would like more info on resizing your photos, you are welcome to email us at info@mcsyarraman.com.au.

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