Image Resizing (for large images people post)

[GTi_M]

For those of you who love to post pictures, but often times don't know how to resize them, Microsoft has a great XP Power toy aptly named the Image Resizer that will automatically resize pictures for you. It's a great little program. All you need to do is select the picture (or pictures) you want to resize, then right click on the file name, goto "resize image" and the select the size you want.

Small is 640x480

Medium is 800x600

Large is 1024x768

Hand Held is 240x320

It also will compress the image with very little noticeable difference in quality. Say your pictures are 2mb when you download them from your camera, it will resize them often times to sizes less than 100k! Perfect for the internet!

Image Resizer download towards the bottom on the right hand side

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Direct link to the program

http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/ImageResizerPowertoySetup.exe

You might also wanna try the ClearType tuning program too. If your not using ClearType, you should be!

[WMcD]

You can also use regular old MS Paint. There is a stretch / skew function in the "image" pull-down menu. It is easy to set both horizontal and vertical to 50%, for example. Too bad they don't tell you about this "shrink" in the stretch.

Some cameras and program will give you the picture in a bitmap format. This is the most accurate and the least compressed (none) format. Paint will open such a file and whether or not you shrink, you can save it ("save as") a .jpg file. This compressed the file size to under 10% of original.

.jpg does not do well on line drawings and typewritten material. You get gray halos at the black to white transitions. .gif and .tif are good for that though and Paint can do it.

I suggest Paint simply because Windows users have it right there already.

My current favorite means for posting longer documents particularly those with text and pictures is Adobie Acrobat Professional unlike the free reader, this converts files into the format. It has a compression algorithm which is effective. You can even insert a video clip.

Gil

[m00n]

What is ClearType?

[GTi_M]

ClearType basically smooths the rough edges of the fonts your computer uses to display text. It makes it much easier to read.

http://www.theeldergeek.com/enable_clear_type.htm

That page will tell you how to enable ClearType.

The ClearType tuner basically asks you a couple questions and shows you some blocks of text, and you pick the one you think looks best. All text is then viewed with that setting.

Much easier on the eyes!

[Bill H.]

GTi,

thanks so much for the Clear Type Link!.........it was fun, and easy! It improves my old CRT screen

100 %.............

[GTi_M]

Bill, no problem!

I'm just glad you found it useful. While writing about the Image Resizer, I remember the ClearType tuner too. Glad you could put it to use!

Now keep displaying your audio knowledge so I can learn more about it! I'm just beginning my speaker/listening/music journey now. In the end, its all about the music...