Let me try
Most image editing software programs basic functions are pretty much the same. The software that comes with digital cameras should walk you through it.
They are basic and after playing with it you should be fine. And if you give it time you will want software that is a little better.
The best way to take a digital picture, is to take it at it highest pixel setting or at least the second highest. The reason I says this. The higher the better it will look if you decide to save them to a disc and take them to get put on real photo paper or print them out at home.
I will get into this deeper as you ask questions. But the internet is different. The picture will look very good at a much lower byte size.
Also the smaller the faster it will load.
Two different ways to think of size. Pixels, which is the actual size of the image. So think of it as inches. File size, think of that as bytes/weight.
So the picture of my nephew Daniel below started at 2048x1536 pixels. Which is 28.4 inches x 15.3 inches. That is very large. Now you have two choices at this point. You can try and keep the size and just lower file size. If you want to save this picture for the internet. The first thing you should want to is lower the file size. The lower the better, while keeping the best possible picture quality.
So let work with file size first, that is most import for the internet. Keep in mind you can edit the bytes/weight size or pixels/inches sizes in any order. I just choose to do the file byte size first. That is most important for getting pictures to load fast on the net.
File size or weight. Should be 18,000 bytes or less to load your picture fast on the net. So imagine the picture weight you want is 18,000 or less. When you take a digital picture the file size/weight will differ depending on the settings and the capability of the camera. Let's assume you are just taking them for the net. So you will want the file size to be small as possible with out losing to much quality. So it really does not matter how big it starts once you get the picture from your camera to the computer you can change it. You may have a setting on your camera for internet picture. Which will put you in the ball game with out much editing. Try that first. That setting might be 640x480 which is pretty standard for net pictures. They will look good and load fast.
When you first take a picture and it's saved on your camera it is pretty large in file size meaning pixels/inches and bytes/weight unless you select a smaller setting like 640x480. That setting will give you a decent byte/weight and pixel/inches size. That size can be edited if you want. But may not have to be. I take my pictures at the higher setting to keep the quality high. So I know for sure it will print out and produce a nice photo or real picture. So I save the big file and after I edit that file I save it with a different name somewhere else on my computer. Then I have a big one and a little one I can use for the net. Lets say you saved this picture to your computer or know how to get it to the software program you have.
Once you get it to your software look around for some of the setting I talked about. (Pixels/inches/percent) which is actual size like 8x10. Look for file size/bytes which is the weight. Remember I am using the word weight so you understand file size/bytes. You will not see the word weight anywhere. Until you can an idea of what you are doing. Look for automatic things. The buttons in the program will handle everything for you.
Most software that comes with a camera edits file size and pixels automatically. You may not easily see these words. You may try looking for reduce, and other word like that. They are made for people that have no idea about this and want to use there camera and get images on the net or use them for email fast.
Anyway you want to reduce the file size. You are limited to how small you can get the file size based on its pixels/inches.
So you reduce the size using an image optimizer program or the software you have has one built in. There might be a but that says optimize or some thing like that. The picture of Daniel started at 900,000 bytes. I clicked the optimize button. Some software will not have a button, it will take you to the optimizer when you click save. Anyway when I optimized this picture it only went down to 500,000 byte. The reason for this The quality is set at 95 percent. If I want it smaller, which I do for the net. I had to things I can change. I can reduce the quality setting from 95 percent on down to 0 if I want. But the lower you go the worse the picture will look. Or I can reduce the size. This picture at 900,000 bytes is very large. 2048x1536 or 28.4x21.3 inches
So to me the most important is the quality over the pixels/inches.
So I decided to make it smaller. I have a button called dimension.. This is where I can make the picture smaller. I can choose inches, pixels or percent option. They are all the same. It depends on what you want to use. I will use inches. I also will select keep aspect ratio before I choose my size. This will help keep the picture shape the same. Meaning if you had the picture in your hand and squeeze it together. You would squeeze all sides of the picture at the same time. Instead of pushing in the side first then pushing the top and bottom in. If you make them smaller separately the picture can look funny. Again your program may do this for you with out you knowing it.
So I chose inches. I set it to 4x6 hit the button. This will reduce the inches from 28x21 to 6x4. When doing this it will also bring down the file size or weight. Let say to 300,000. Which is still way to many bytes. But now that we have the picture small in inches. We can go back to the optimizer and try again. We really want to keep the quality as high as possible. So I will keep it at 95 %. I hit the button and WOW it goes from 300,000 bytes to 15,000 bytes. A picture at 15,000 bytes is good. It will load in a second or two on the net. Some software does this better than others.
After you press the optimize button if you are not happy with the weight/bytes. Again you can reduce the quality percentage or go back and make the inches/pixels smaller and try it again.
Save the picture to a folder on your computer in a .gif or .jpg format. Do this to the same spot you had before or make a new folder called web pictures and save it to that folder. I know this is still confusing but my main objective is to repeat words you may see in your program to get you familiar with the terms. You should use the help that is within the program. They may have a search feature.
I recommend a program called Photo Impact. It is 85 bucks or so and has a lot of features you may want in the future and that are in much more expensive programs.. It's as easy as it gets without being one of the goofy programs that come with cameras. However all you may need is what you get with the camera and that is just fine. They will definitely get you on the net and help you send photo's via e-mail
When you want to put the picture on the internet. Upload it to a web site or you can use this board to upload it right from your computer.
Remember you want to reduce the file size/bytes/weight of the picture. You also want to reduce the pixels/inches of the image to a reasonable size. Lets say 6x4 or smaller and 15,000 bytes or less give or take either way.
I hope this helps. Get familiar with the program you have. Just keep trying things. Must programs have a button you can undo or go back from the last thing you did. So go crazy and if you don't like it go back. If you mess up and can't go back. Close the file, the program will ask you if you want to save the changes. Say no. Then reopen the same file or picture and start over. Never save the changes you made unless you are sure you like them or have a backup of the image. There is no going back once you save. You can always re-edit the picture again, but you have to start from were you saved it last.
Good Luck,
Let me know if you need anymore help.
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