somebody help a novice, please

[westingman123]

Okay, I know I'm a relic, but for the life of me I cannot upload photos. Have managed to get them from digital camera into pc. Can see them in a gallery, looking innocuous. Attempt to upload and they are HUGE. Ginormous! Paul suggested emailing them to myself, but I was unsuccessful at that. Any suggestions? I'm itching to share some of my "stuff"; and am about to embark on the Westy pair restoration after the Holidays. Feel free to email me or whatever. Thx

 

[revvinkevin]

Hey Westingman123, I just sent you an e-mail.

Kevin

 

[danemodsandy]

No. 1 - Resize

If the photos are ginormous, you need to cut 'em down to size. Irfanview is a free piece of software that will do that; you can download Irfanview at the link below. Once you have it downloaded and installed, resizing pics is very easy.

1- Go to the File menu and click on Open; navigate to the photo you want and click on its name to open it. Now go back to the File menu and click on Save As to create a copy of the picture for resizing. NEVER MAKE CHANGES ON THE ORIGINAL PIC; ALWAYS DO YOUR TINKERING WITH A COPY. This way, you always have the original to make another copy if something goes wrong. Give the copy its own unique name, putting it in whatever folder you like. Now, go back to the File menu again, and open the copy you just made (until you do this, it's your original that's open on the screen, not your copy).

2- Now click on the Image menu, and then click on Resize/Resample. A window like the one in the photo below will open. Notice where it says, "Set new size as percentage of original." Click on the little tick circle to make this option active. Now fill in a percentage value; in the example, 50% is filled in. This would resize the photo to half its original size. Now click the OK button at the bottom of the window. The photo will be shrunk by half (or whatever percentage you've chosen).

3- Go back to the File menu and click on Save. This saves the change you've just made. You now have a resized copy of your original photo.

THAT'S IT.

IrfanView - Official Homepage - One of the Most Popular Viewers Worldwide

IrfanView ... one of the most popular viewers worldwide.

www.irfanview.com

 

[danemodsandy]

No 2 - Upload Picture to AW

This is sooooooo easy.

Under the Message window where you usually type your posts is a bar titled, "Upload JPEG Format Picture to share in message." There is a button at the end of that bar marked "Browse..."

Just click on the Browse button and your files/folders menus will appear; navigate to the picture file you want to add to your post the same way you would if you wanted to open a particular text file in Word. Once you have located the picture file you want to add, click on its filename. The filename will automatically be inserted into the bar.

Now, click on the Preview Message button as you always do, and your message will be previewed complete with picture. After you're satisfied that all is well, click on the Post this to Discuss-O-Mat button the way you always do; that sends your message out into the world, with the picture.

That's all there is to it.

 

[DADoES]

Note that there's a long-time bug in the AW system. If adding a picture to a post when you are not yet logged-in (your saved log-in cookie has expired for example), a new log-in isn't prompted until AFTER Preview is clicked. Your picture will upload but it won't attach to the post and you won't see it in the preview. If that's the case, DELETE the picture from the post (so there aren't stray files left on the server), then ADD it again and recheck the preview.

If you DON'T see your picture on the post preview, then it DIDN'T attach properly and the post will have a broken image if you commit it without fixing the picture.

 

[westingman123]

here goes nuttin!

Luddite that I am, I printed the whole post and followed step-by-step. Let's see if I was successful.

 

[westingman123]

whoo hoo!

This is gonna take some tinkering, but GRACIAS. Although I'm afraid you may have created a monster. I'm about to be late for work already.

**big grin**

 

[danemodsandy]

Lora Mae says:

You're gonna be a giant!

 

[gadgetgary]

Sandy

Thanks for the link to IrfanView.

Is there a way to 'crop' a pic?

 

[danemodsandy]

Gary:

In the Edit menu, there are some cropping selections. I confess that I don't use Irfanview a whole lot, because I have other software that I like for graphics, but Irfanview will handle some file formats, like TIFF, that other software gags on. I would go to the Help menu to find out more about how to use Irfanview's crop function.

 

[lordkenmore]

A trick I've used when I take photos I plan to only use for an Internet post is to set my camera so the files are already small. My camera (and I'm sure others, if not all) has settings for the photo size (size of picture, plus compression amount). The smallest photo size, with maximum compression, creates a file so small that no tinkering is needed.

This does require learning more about one's camera than many know...but I think in the end this is an easier solution.

 

[westingman123]

I suppose it would also require reading the camera's manual, and we ALL know how THAT can be!! I'm awful to tinker with something, then when all else fails, READ THE MANUAL. Guess I'll never "larn".

Hey Sandy-back to the beanstalk! Careful, I'll run on longer than Linda Gray.

 

[lordkenmore]

reading the camera's manual, and we ALL know how THAT ca

Just make sure you tell someone what jungle you'll be in, and bring provisions for five or six days in case you get lost!

I know I really hated my camera manual, and I don't really know how to work all the features. I learned what I need to know for the stuff I might do, and figure I'll learn more if/when I need to.

Another thing I really hate is the user interface on the camera.