Home >> Hobbies >> Photography

The Best Way to Compress Large Picture Files on a PC

Digital photos can be very large, with a file scanned from a negative or slide reaching upwards of 200 megabytes. Digital camera files range in size from one to five megabytes and can quickly eat up the space on a hard drive. Compressing images saves valuable disk storage space and allows for quicker sending of images through email or uploading on the Internet. What is the best method to reduce an image's file size? Different methods exist to achieve this goal.

Compression
- Compression works by packaging the available data into smaller bits of information. Most persons familiar with the Winzip utility usually understand compressing or ̶0;zipping̶1; files. This tool makes the file smaller and packages it in a compressed folder. In order to view the file it must run through Winzip or a similar utility to decompress the file. Compressing a large image file will reduce the file size but may not reduce it enough for email or web applications. Image editing software remains the best way to reduce a photograph's file size.
Software
- Scores of image editing software titles exist on the market, Adobe Photoshop, Picasa, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Corel Paint Shop Pro to name a few. Each of these titles allow the user to edit images in multiple ways. Searching the software's help menu will direct the user to the proper way to reduce an image's file size. Adobe Photoshop has a few ways to reduce the size of an image. The user can reduce the dimensions by changing the number of pixels by a certain percentage in both directions (horizontally and vertically) or by indicating exact pixel dimensions for the image. This method does not decrease the resolution of the image, only the file size. Photoshop users also have the option of saving the file for the web. This allows the user to save a file using any number of presets designed to reduce file size and image quality, if desired.
Microsoft help
- Microsoft's PowerToys for Windows XP contains an image resizing application. An easy way to resize one or more images, this tool becomes available with a simple right-click of the mouse. After clicking, a ̶0;resize pictures̶1; options box appears, allowing the user to resize an image to four fixed settings and a custom setting size. It also allows for editing the original image without making a copy. This is a handy tool for quickly editing multiple images without the need of software.

Photography