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General discussion

How do I downsize photos I receive in email?

Apr 9, 2011 2:09AM PDT

I can only view 1/4 of the photos on my screen and it takes forever to download them. How can I resize them before opening them? Running XP service pack 3, IE8, Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus, on a ?Gateway Media Center?. I don't know where the model number is.

Discussion is locked

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Re: downsize photo's
Apr 9, 2011 4:31AM PDT

Seems you have two different problems:
1. It takes forever to download a photo.
2. The photo is too big for the screen.

For #1 tell more about downloading. What exactly do you mean with that? What program do you use to download? What's your Internet connection (dial-up, ADSL, cable)? How big is the photo (in kB or MB)?

For #2 tell what program you use to view the photo.

Kees

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I Use The Free Irfanview Program
Apr 9, 2011 10:31AM PDT

Here's the link.. Download and install the program.. Once that's done, save the picture file from your email to your desktop. Next, open the Irfanview program, choose "Open", then navigate to the picture on your desktop and click on it. After the picture opens in the Irfanview screen, click on "Image" in the upper left, chooe "Resize/resample", then resize the picture to whatever you'd like.

http://www.irfanview.com/

The are a lot of other picture viewers which work in much the same way.. This just happens to be the one I use.

Hope this helps.

Grif

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Re: Irfanview
Apr 9, 2011 9:51PM PDT

I got the impression (that's why I asked all those questions the OP didn't answer yet) that he wants to make the pictures smaller BEFORE downloading. Obviously that can't be done.

If he uses Outlook Express indeed, that shows the attached pictures (in some cases or always) full-size in the body of the mail. If it happens to be a 3000 x 2000 pixel pic, that doesn't fit. And, of course, it's too early to use Irfanview if it happens as soon as you open the mail.

Irfanview has a lot of options to VIEW the picture. And that's all the OP needs, I think. He doesn't talk about permanently resizing it (from 3000x2000 to 800x600 or such). In Irfanview 4.28 I count 10 different options relating to window and picture size.
But the default Microsoft viewer always shows the whole picture also, I think. It's just Outlook Express that behaves the way the OP describes.

Kees

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Understood, Unfortunately.....
Apr 10, 2011 2:51PM PDT

...although you correctly stated the problem, which I overlooked, I know of no method to resize pictures "Before" they're downloaded. In fact, how does one know they're there until they're downloaded or viewed? And in much the same way, until they're opened, I know of no way of changing their size..

If the picture is "attached" as a separate file, or if the picture is "inserted" in the body of the email message, of which both can be done in Outlook Express, the only way to resize that I'm aware of is to save the file to the desktop and use third party program to alter the files properties.

My mistake.

Grif

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It sounds to me . . .
Apr 9, 2011 12:00PM PDT

like your friends are not being friends by sending humongous size pictures. Tell "THEM" to downsize the pictures.

Running XP you must be using Outlook Express. I know exactly what you're talking about size wise. And I've told my friends, tactfully, to use this Power Toy called Image Resizer located here http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/windows-xp After installing Image Resizer right clicking any image file brings up a tool to resize any image. Simple options. Tell your friends to properly size pictures before they send them. I find the size 1024 X 768 is perfect size for viewing in the Outlook Express pane.

If you want to resize these pictures you can save them to any folder, right click the file, and resize yourself.

"Takes forever to download" is because your friends are sending pictures measured in Megabytes in size. Image Resizer fixes this.