Don't send a picture the size of a poster
to show at the size of a stamp!

Maybe you don't think there's any need these days to reduce the file size of computer images

Fat computer images now have plenty of room to lounge around in multi-gigabyte desktop computer drives. But sorry. That's no reason to sit back and enjoy the ride. Not yet. Sending, editing or even just storing overweight image files can still cost you.

If you run a website, big images not only slow the loading of your pages. losing you visitors who haven't got broadband. The extra bandwidth and storage space could take you up another rung on the charging ladder.

On a phone, web browsing, sending email attachments or multimedia messages eats money at an alarming rate whether you pay by the megabyte or the minute.

Phone micro browsers may shrink computer image files to display on tiny screens - but some will load them at full size first. This is one of the two major wrong ideas about image file sizes that can cost you money.

Cost apart, most mobile phones and handhelds have limited memory. Even when a Palm, Pocket PC or phone has a card slot, files often have to squeeze into the main memory - for instance to be used as wallpaper.

There are also times when you have to slim computer images to conform to a set limit. Advertising banners have a megabyte ceiling in order to load fast in any browser. So do photos of articles you may be auctioning at Ebay.

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When you're reducing the file size of computer images, there are three definitions of 'small'.

1. Displays in a small area of screen space
2. Contains a small number of pixels
3. Makes a small file

Small in one way doesn't mean small in another...

SO... don't send a picture the size of a poster to show at the size of a stamp!

It's always a good idea to make sure you don't need to reduce the file size of computer images. A graphic the size of a thumb nail can still be a much bigger file than it needs to be. Perhaps I should say, 'a graphic that looks the size of a thumbnail...' It might not actually be as small as it looks.

Zoom any picture intended for small-size display at 100% magnification in your photo editor. If it's larger than the destination size, reduce it. You'll get better quality that way as well. Leave oversize pictures to automatic processing which is outside your control, and they could even end up looking fuzzier rather than sharper. What a waste!

NOTE the difference between Canvas and Picture sizes in editors like Photoshop. Reducing canvas size will just slice part of your photo or artwork off to reach the dimensions you enter. Reducing picture size will shrink the whole picture.

(Neither of these is of course the same as Zoom, which only magnifies or reduces the display, not the actual file.)

NB. Don't choose 'Save', but 'Save As', to copy your reduced picture with another name, so that if you have a large, detailed photo or other computer image, you'll keep the original.

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Don't send a picture the size of a poster to show at the size of a stamp!

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