Lovely Tech Support

Today’s episode of Lovely Tech Support begins with this question:

I am trying to upload pics to my blog but I am out of storage space. Help!

If you have a newer digital camera it is probably set to take pictures that are big enough to print, but too big to use on the internet–for example, on your blog or on the Park Bench. There are two easy ways to fix this:

1. Upload your photos to the Gallery and paste the code from the Gallery into your blog or post. The Gallery will automatically resize your photo as you upload so you won’t end up with gigantic files that take up all the storage space on your blog.

   (There’s more information about “pasting the code from the Gallery” here.)

2. Resize your photos and upload them directly to your blog.

   Your digital camera probably comes with software that will allow you to resize your photos. But, since all cameras are different, it’s easiest to explain the resize step by using an online service that doesn’t require you to download new software or figure out how to run it.

   Here’s a good, free online resizing service: www.freeresizer.com. To use it:

   Choose the photo you want to resize from your hard drive by pressing the “Browse” button, then press “upload image.” Wait…wait… wait… while the file is uploading. On the next screen, choose the settings for your resized photo. Here’s an example:

   

   There are only a few things you need to pay attention to on this screen:

   Image height and width: set the longest side of your image to 1024. If you have a horizontal photo, set the width to 1024. If you have a vertical photo set the height to 1024. The other dimension will adjust automatically.

   Set the photo quality to 70.

   Hit “process.”

   When your image is resized, a new image will appear on the right. Press “save” and save the resized image to your hard drive. Give it a new name so you won’t write over the top of the original picture. The resized image is the one you’ll want to use for your blog.

   See the red arrows? On the left (original image) it points to gobbledegook that reads “1473kb.” That’s your file size and it’s huge. You can only fit about 10 photos that are this big in the storage space for your blog.

   Now look at the right (resized image.) The arrow points to gobbledegook that reads “76kb.” You can fit 100-150 pictures that are this big in your blog. Again, the instructions for uploading photos directly to your blog are here.

If you want to know more about why photos for print and internet are different, there’s an article about it here: Understanding Resolution.

More questions? Post them in the comment section below.