Hi guys,

I realize that saving me time isn't necessarily high on everyone's list of priorities, but things would operate a little smoother if we could at least all get on the same page for photos.  We've beaten the knots vs mph topic into the ground, so I thought I'd toss in some different terms to deal with.

Passing digital photos around is a great way to share information. Unfortunately, everybody uses different cameras to get their photos, and each camera comes with its own software for downloading the pictures to your computer.  With all these different cameras and softwares out there we have a multipilicity of photo formats to deal with... JPG, TIF, PSD, GIF, BMP, FPX, JP2, and probably 4 to a dozen others that I have yet to encounter but I'm sure that I will sooner or later.  Formats like BMP, TIF and PSD (Photoshop) generally require very large file sizes but typically have the greatest resolution.   GIF files (Compuserve's early picture format) are usually smaller and JPGs smaller still, although both suffer from lower fidelity due to their compression algorithms.

We have over 700 people on the LML, most of whom probably enjoy broadband internet access.  Unfortunately, there is stall a large number of subscribers who are stuck with dial-up access, and for them downloading TIF or PSD files is pure hell.  During the message approval process I typically view any photos that are attached to your messages, and when they are too large I download them to my system, shrink them to a reasonable size, and save them off as JPG files.  I use a very simple piece of software for this photo manipulation, it's called IrfanView and is freeware, available at www.irfanview.com.  It would be much simpler if you would take your TIF, PSD, GIF, BMP or other files yourself, run them through IrfanView and save them off as JPG files.  Here are some simple guidelines... don't send photos that are 2500x1600 or even 1600x1200... those formats are too large to view on most monitors and they result in huge file sizes.  Resize your photos to 640x480... they look fine on the screen and pass around easily with email.  When they're sized that way and you use high to moderate compression (selectable when you "save as" a JPG in IrfanView) the files will typically be less than 50k per picture.  At that filesize you could attach half a dozen photos and still be within the 300k limit I use on my other list, which works very well, thank you much.  If you attach more than 3 photos and I have to do the resizing, when I resubmit your message I have to send multiples because the online email software limits me to 3 attachments per post.  Additionally, when I have to submit your messages on your behalf, it is my email address that shows up in the "from" box and your name is only included within the body of the message at the top of the post where it says "Posted for.....".

In closing, please get IrfanView.  It is a very simple, yet powerful program that will allow you to manage just about all of your media files (it also does MP3, MIDI, AVI, MOV, WMV, etc), and once you get used to it you'll find many other uses for it besides resizing photos.  Please shrink your LML photo submissions to no larger than 640x480 and send them as JPG files.  Your assistance in this matter will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks...

   <Marv>