Image Sharing Is The Reason For PhotographyThis page is devoted to image sharing and the many ways to accomplish that. After all, most photographers make images in order to share them with others. The coming of the digital age has opened up many new ways to do this that were not possible in the days of film. “Preparing Images For E-Mail Is Simple But Necessary” One of the most popular and quickest image sharing methods is to attach it to an e-mail. A few minutes spent preparing the image file will make this a better and more enjoyable process for those on the receiving end. Any available photo editing program should be able to accomplish this process. Starting with the original file produced by the camera, the first step is to open the file in an image editing program. If shooting RAW files, first develop the image with your RAW converter and save as a standard, uncompressed file type such as .TIFF. If shooting .JPG files, the next step should always be to “save as”, give the file a descriptive name and in the “file type” box select the program’s native file type, usually at the top of the drop-down menu list. This will make the file more accessible for all future needs and eliminate any degradation due to compression(as happens with .jpg files each time they are opened and then saved again). This should become your standard procedure for all of your “keeper” image files as soon as they are downloaded from the camera. This is also the time to delete any substandard images. Next, do any needed exposure and color balance adjustments using your image editor of choice. This step will involve setting the white and black points, adjusting gamma, contrast, brightness and saturation and any needed cropping. When shooting RAW files in-camera, most of this work is done in the conversion process. Now for the real image sharing action: e-mail prep. With the file open in an editing program, open the “re-size” dialogue. Make sure that both the “constrain proportions” and “resample image” options are checked. This will ensure that the image is not distorted. Set the “resolution” to 72 pixels/inch, a standard screen resolution. Set the width between 6 and 10 inches – this will become the default size the image will appear when opened by the person(s) receiving the e-mail. Click “OK” to resize the image – it will probably change size on your screen. After resizing at 72 ppi, “save as” again, this time choosing .JPG as the file type. I also suggest setting up a new folder just for these e-mail images so they don’t get confused with full-resolution files. When the JPG compression box comes up, choose a medium setting of 4-5. This should give good image quality when viewed on most monitor screens and will produce a small file size for easy image sharing. This is important as your friends will soon get tired of looking at your photos if you are sending full-size files and they have to wait minutes for them to open. Save the full-resolution files for making prints, where it makes a difference or at least warn people if you are sending one of these large files. You should now have a file between 25 and 100 KB in size that will upload and download quickly and still look great on a monitor. You will also be protected to a large degree from anyone trying to make unauthorized prints of the images, as the files will be too small for anything larger than a thumbnail. Keeping these e-mail optimized files in their own folder will make it easy to find and attach them as needed. These files will also be suitable for use in most slide-show and presentation software if you decide to use those options at some point in the future. If you should need an image for web site use, these files will need just a simple resize of the dimensions. Like most things, this process will seem tricky and complicated the first few times. It will become a simple routine after that and people will look forward to receiving your photo attachments instead of dreading them.
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