Sharing Photos

Email is a great tool for sending and receiving photos. With a digital camera, all you do is download the photos to your machine and you can send out dozens of photos to your entire family within minutes. Now that’s convenience! The problem is, it can be daunting if you don’t know what you are doing. Chances are a friend has sent you an oversized photo that you cannot view all at once. You have to scroll up and down, left and right to see what they have sent. This can be annoying and is easily corrected. Below are some techniques that will hopefully make it easier for you. Naturally, this will depend on what kind of machine you have, Apple or PC.

Apple
Let’s start with a Macintosh, as they make it a snap to accomplish this task. First connect your digital camera and download the photos using iPhoto. iPhoto will automatically detect your camera and ask you if you want to import the photos. Once you have downloaded all photos to your machine, select which photos you want to email by holding down the Command key (it kind of looks like a daisy) and click each photo that you want to send. You should see a blue border around each photo you select. When you are done, click on the “Share” menu at the top of the screen, and select “Email.” You will get a dialog box asking you what size image you want to send. Select “Medium” from the dropdown menu and click compose. Apple’s mail program will automatically launch with the photos attached. Add text and email addresses and click send. If you want to change the size again, there is a small drop down list in the lower right corner labeled “Image Size.” Select an option from here and the image will be automatically resized. Note that it will only let you select a smaller image in the email program. If you want to send a larger version, go back to iPhoto and try it again.

PC
This can also be a snap on a PC if you have the right software. I really like Picasa. It’s free and easy to use. If you don’t already have it, go to Picasa. Of course, instructions for Picasa may vary depending on your email program, but you can go to Picasa’s Support page for more instructions on emailing photos. First start Picasa. Click on the “Tools” Menu and select “Options…” Click on the “E-mail” Tab and Under “Output Options” slide the pointer to 640 pixels and click on “OK.” Now you are ready to email photos. Select which photos you want to send by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and clicking the photos you want to send with your mouse. You should see a blue border around each photo you select. Next click the “Email” button at the bottom of the screen. This will automatically launch your email program and attach your selected images.

The Web
Of course, you may want to create and store virtual photo albums. There are many online services that do this for free, but my favorite is Flickr.. It, too, is free and allows you to create albums and upload photos--even specify who can view them. Get started by going to Flickr.com

Sending someone a photo is easy. Sending them at a viewable, convenient size is even better. Take a moment to learn the above tricks and everyone in your address book will thank you.

Posted by Net Wave at August 8, 2006 10:29 AM