SPEEDY E-MAIL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by John Boretos, MP, NIHCC

Photographs are magnitudes larger to send via E-mail than sending font type. Therefore they need special consideration. Photographs should format so as to be received without difficulty. A properly constructed E-mail photograph that opens quickly and looks sharp can be a joyous occasion to receive; especially if it is a photograph of a loved one. But whatever the content, photos should be properly formatted for speedy access. If they do not open quickly, patience can run out or in the case of very large files, the system will bog down.

E-mail photos, as viewed on a monitor, are displayed at 72 dpi (dots per inch) regardless of the photos actual resolution. If you send a photo that is larger than 72 dpi, the surplus pixels are not thrown away but rather are spread out. This results in a larger picture but not a sharper picture. Larger pictures can take very long time intervals to open. Therefore, there is little to be gained and a lot to loose in sending a photo with a resolution other than the matching 72 dpi of the monitor.

There are three steps that should be observed for executing a successful photo E-mail.
1. Make a working copy of the photograph
2. Reduce its physical size and resolution to practical limits
3. Compress the image into a jpeg format

Making a working copy. More that not, you will need to preserve the original photograph at its full resolution and size for later use, so make a copy by selecting the entire image and copy it. Open a new file and paste the copy to it.

Reduce its size and resolution. Reduce the new copy in size by going to Image > Image Size and change the number of pixels and the resolution to 72. If the original size was 8.5” x 11” and you want a 4x6 image to send, then the pixels should be set to 300 x 432. Click OK. The image will suddenly shrink on you. The original image may have been several Mb in size by is now somewhere around 300 Kb.

Compress into a jpeg. To further reduce the size, do a Save AS where you can open the drop-down window and select the jpeg format. Click OK. Then you are given the choice of the Quality of the jpeg via a sliding bar. Naturally, the higher the quality, the larger the resulting file size. Try to pick a size that closely corresponds to the internet connection speed. A file size of 56 to 72 should be easy to open and still have good sharpness. Usually, this size will be displayed for you before you authorize it. If the size is significantly larger than 72 dpi, then go back and reduce the image from 4x6 to 3x5 etc. and repeat the steps outlined. Click OK and that is all there is to it.

Manipulating The Photo That Is Received. To transfer a sent photo from the as received E-mail to Adobe
Photoshop or other application do the following:
Click on the E-mail photo. A very small window will appear on top of the photo showing four choices. Click on the one that is labeled Save This Image (the icon looks like a small floppy disk). This operation allows you to copy the image. My recommendation is to save (place) it onto the Desktop where you can find it easily. Then Open it in Photoshop (or other) with the drop-down window of jpeg selected. The image is now available to you for alterations, to be placed in your computer photo album, or whatever else is desired.
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