Picture (avatar) Size

[Sonny Jenkins]

I want to change my avatar picture but keep getting message that is too large. How can I change the size? For that matter,,,how can I change size of pics that I want to send email,,,so that it does not overload recipients email,,,,and take sooooo long to download?

[Wiz Feinberg]

I want to change my avatar picture but keep getting message that is too large. How can I change the size? For that matter,,,how can I change size of pics that I want to send email,,,so that it does not overload recipients email,,,,and take sooooo long to download?

Purchase a graphics editor, such as Paint Shop Pro. Or, find a legitimate graphics reducer program, like Foto-Sizer.

[Anders Eriksson]

If you are using Windows 7 then the easiest way is to use Paint. On the Home tab there is a "menu" called Resize.

You can then choose between entering percent or pixels.

On The Steel Guitar Forum the avatars may only be 100x100 pixels

A good idea is to select Maintain Aspect Ratio
Then when you change width the height will change automatically (and if you change height, width will change). This way the image will not be distorted...

// Anders
PS! Paint exists on earlier versions of Windows, but I don't know how they work

[Sonny Jenkins]

Hey Anders,,thanks a million,,,yes, I have win7,,and paint. I resized to 30x 30 pixels,,,but still have a "file size" of 490 KB???? Limit on the forum is 128 KB,,,,if I cut the pixels down anymore the picture would be too small to see???

[Wiz Feinberg]

Hey Anders,,thanks a million,,,yes, I have win7,,and paint. I resized to 30x 30 pixels,,,but still have a "file size" of 490 KB???? Limit on the forum is 128 KB,,,,if I cut the pixels down anymore the picture would be too small to see???

Sonny;
You are going to need to also reduce the "quality" of the image, using a .jpg optimizer. Most real graphics editors contain optimizers, which reduce the file size, while maintaining acceptable amounts of loss of quality. For a tiny Avatar, such loss is negligible.

If you visit the Foto-Sizer website I provided a link to, you can download the freeware program, then set the dimensions you need, followed by a reduction of Quality (default is 80%), under Optional Settings > Misc. 30% to 40% Quality will get you a lot of file size reduction.

[Anders Eriksson]

What format do you save the picture in?
depending on the format you will get different sizes.

24-bits BMP will take most space
png or jpg or gif will be smaller.

If you are saving as bmp, open the picture in Paint and click on the Save As and try which format get you the smallest file size.

// Anders

[Roger Kelly]

Sonny, here is the one I use. About as easy as it gets.
http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

[Sonny Jenkins]

Well I used the shrink pictures link and it looks like it worked.