Here is some info that I used to resize some of my pictures.
Have you ever taken a digital photo at high resolution for printing purposes only to find out that the image was then too big to send by e-mail or post on a message board ? That's happened to most of us. There are, however, some simple steps you can take to insure your photos are easy to open by your intended recipients.
Since most Windows-based programs include Microsoft Paint as a standard program, many people use it to adjust the size of photos before e-mailing the images. To find Microsoft Paint, click your cursor arrow on the START menu at the lower left side of your screen and click on "All Programs." Through subsequent menus and submenus, locate "Accessories" and then "Paint." Click your cursor arrow on "Paint" to open the program. Here's how to reduce the size of a picture:
1. Open your specific picture in Microsoft Paint by using the "File" menu and clicking on "Open." When the "Open" dialog box appears, navigate to the picture you want to modify and select it. Then click the "Open" button.
2. Check your file's size by going to the "Image" menu and selecting "Attributes." You will see a line that says "Size on Disk." It will show the size of your picture in bytes. Anything over about 100,000 bytes (or 100K) will be slower to send or post -- especially if you are sending more than one photo as an attachment to a single e-mail. (FYI - 1,000,000 bytes is one megabyte.) Close the "Attributes" dialog box when you are done.
3. Go to the "Image" menu again and select "Stretch/Skew" from the drop-down menu. The "Stretch and Skew" dialog box will appear. You'll see both a "Stretch" area and a "Skew" area. You'll work only in the "Stretch" area for this exercise.
4. You will want to reduce the stretch percentages of your photo by the same amount both vertically and horizontally to keep the image from being distorted. Start out with 50 percent both vertically and horizontally. Click "OK." The photo will become visibly smaller.
5. To save your new photo while preserving your original image, go to the "File" menu and drop down to "Save As." When the "Save As" dialog box appears, give your reduced photo a name in the "File name:" field and then click on the "Save" button.
6. Go to the "Image" menu once again and recheck the "attributes" of your new smaller sized image. If you think you've reduced the file size enough, you're finished. The new photo is now ready to send to your friends and family. Otherwise, repeat the process by making adjustments to the percentage of reductions. If you aren't satisfied with a result, simply throw the smaller copy away and start over with your original. Remember to always use "Save As" to avoid losing your original image.
Additional Notes:
• When adjusting the size of a photo, many programs (i.e. Photoshop or Photoshop Elements) will refer to this option as "Image Size" rather than "Stretch/Skew." Follow the same basic steps when using one of these programs.
• If you are a Mac user, iPhoto has a handy "Mail" button that allows for very simple changes to photo resolution when e-mailing pictures.
• Most digital cameras have options for taking low-resolution photos. This allows you to avoid having to resize pictures after you've downloaded them onto your computer if you're planning to send the images as e-mail attachments.
• Remember to send only one photo or very few photos attached to a single e-mail to keep the e-mail's file size relatively small. Large attachment files may plug-up the e-mail inbox of your intended recipient.