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How to Shrink Digital Photos - Fast, Easy, Free

Resizing photos and images for use in your articles, blogs or websites can take a lot of time and effort. It doesn't have to! You don't even need a drawing or paint program (or if you have one, you don't need to know how to use it!) One website has made the whole process of making pictures smaller so simple, that you only need to know how to click your mouse. And it's free! You can resize any photo to a choice of common sizes, including one suitable for an avatar, or choose a custom size. Additionally, you can modify your photo to appear in black and white or sepia tones by just clicking a box. Here's how you can shrink digital photos, fast, easy and free!

Instructions

- 1
  Make sure you have the image or photo that you want to shrink downloaded and saved in your computer. Know the file name and what folder it's stored in. It can be a jpg, gif or png file. The new resized image will be a jpg file.
- 2
  Go to the website ShrinkPictures.com. Take a look at the Tutorial link on the right side of the page if you would like to read up on what pixels and DPI and PPI are, as well as what sizes may be best for facebook pages, emails or blogs.
  
  The bottom half of the front page contains the "shrink picture" box for your instructions. Here, it will ask you to simply browse your computer to find the photo or image you want to resize. When you find and choose that photo, the filename will show in the box.
- 3
  Choose the size you would like your photo to be. You can choose the size by either the number of pixels or by a percentage of your original. The tutorial suggests using a 350 pixel size for email use, and the 600 pixel size for blogs and online articles (like this eHow article). However, there is a custom option for shrinking pictures to the exact size you want.
- 4
  If you would like to modify your photo to appear in grayscale or sepia tones, just click on the next box and choose the corresponding radio button.
- 5
  Select whether you would like your photo to be high resolution (best), medium resolution (better) or low resolution (good). The higher the resolution, the larger the file will be. So, for emails, choosing Good is probably the way to go, so that the attached photo won't slow it down.
- 6
  Hit the Resize box! In a few moments, or a little longer if the original picture is really large, you'll see a page with your new resized (or modified, if you chose grayscale or sepia) image. You'll see what size your original image was (in pixels and bytes), and what size the new shrunken image is. If you chose to modify your image, be sure to look down the page. The full-color image will appear in the upper part of the page and the modified one will appear farther down.
  
  To download it to your computer, simply click on the link that says "Download this picture Now." Remember to give it a new file name on your computer.
  
  That's all there is to it! And one more benefit of this website is that you can shrink digital photos even if you're not at home. If you're on the road, you can use any computer equipped to read a digital media card from your camera to resize the photos you've just taken and email them home or to friends and family!

Photography