Software to compress JPG file to smaller file size

If you never edit photos then you probably don't need high resolution. But if you like to crop and edit photos then higher resolution will allow you crop and cut and still have decent photos when you're done.

What do you guys do with all of these HUGE (high MegaPixel) pictures?

The ONLY time the pixel count comes into play is in printing.

No matter what the advertisements say, the average consumer level printer has a 300 dpi. maximum resolution.

I have a 13" X 19" printer and I cannot see any difference between an 8 MP print and an 18 MP print.

5 MP is plenty for a good 8 1/2" X 11" without pixilation.

As far as Emailing pictures, the native resolution of most consumer level computer monitors is still 72 dpi. Emailing anything more than 1-2 MP for a large computer screen makes virtually no difference to the viewer. I usually send 800 pix X 600 pix.

After having a couple of terabyte drives filled with a couple hundred thousand pictures, I don't shoot large any more. No one but me ever looks at them anyway.

Tim

PS: Didja ever wonder why new printers print in 8 1/2" x 11" format but most of the picture frames you can buy are in 8" X 10" or 11" X 14"? Hmmmmmm.............

NRALIFR wrote:
You don't need to compress it any more. What you need is software that will reduce the image size (H x W) and quality, which in most cases will not noticeably affect the image for forum posting use. I believe Irfanview will do that, but to be honest I haven't really played with it much so I could be wrong. I have an old image editing program called Image Expert that has a very easy to use interface that allows you to choose four levels of image quality, and change the image size in pixels while maintaining the height to width aspect ratio. Doing that can have a dramatic effect on the file size, and still have an image suitable for emailing or forum posting.

Unfortunately, Image Expert isn't available anymore, but I'm sure there are other programs that willl do the same things.

:):)

There is no "magic bullet".

You can't have top quality AND large size and compress it into a smaller file size.

Personally, if the OPs idea is small file sizes to EMAIL then why bother taking the photos at top resolution setting on the camera?

If you have say a 10 megapixel camera, set it to take 5 or 6 mega pixel photos.. You will cut your photo file size in half and for all intents and purposes most folks on the other end of the email will never notice the difference..

You can easily cut the photo resolution (on the camera) down to 2 megapixels and still have plenty of detail to print off a 8x10 photo without noticeable pixelation..

Alternatively, if the OP wants the folks to get supersized photos without going to the hassle of resizing them all then I would recommend simply signing up for a Google email address.. You get 15 GB of FREE GOOGLE DRIVE online storage space and you CAN easily SHARE those photos.

On Google drive you simply setup a SHARED folder, copy your photos to that folder. Then you generate a URL link to that folder.

You then EMAIL THE GOOGLE LINK to the folks you want to share the photos with.

They then can view and download the photos they want.

You don't need to compress it any more. What you need is software that will reduce the image size (H x W) and quality, which in most cases will not noticeably affect the image for forum posting use. I believe Irfanview will do that, but to be honest I haven't really played with it much so I could be wrong. I have an old image editing program called Image Expert that has a very easy to use interface that allows you to choose four levels of image quality, and change the image size in pixels while maintaining the height to width aspect ratio. Doing that can have a dramatic effect on the file size, and still have an image suitable for emailing or forum posting.

Unfortunately, Image Expert isn't available anymore, but I'm sure there are other programs that willl do the same things.

:):)

I've been using Faststone Photo Resizer for years it really works well and is free.

http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDownload.htm

How many pics we talking about?

I use Paint to resize, but only one at a time.

Second Chance wrote:
JPEG files are already compressed - that's their purpose. To get them smaller, they need to be resized. The process of saving them may compress them further, but they will also be further degraded. "Compressing" JPEG files is like mashing mashed potatoes.

Rob

You do not have to resize in order to make compression higher.

JPG is already somewhat compressed, so you are not going to get much more. The "industry standard" is 7-Zip. It uses a very good compression algorithm and will uncompress just about anything.

You are much better off using something like DropBox or even shared folder on Google Drive. Both allow you to specify individual person to share with. Google Drive allows you to share with "anyone who has the link", and the links pretty much can NOT be decoded !


BTDTGTTS

I also store my JPEGs in a folder untouched... You can make them smaller but but you can't make them bigger so always have the biggest size stored somewhere and play with copies of it...

I use PAINT or MS OFFICE PICTURE MANAGER to resize my JPEG copies to what i need... Most computers come with these two photo programs already installed on them...

Roy Ken

Sounds like a test of Irfan is in order. Thanks!