PLEASE hlp!

boonbear · Mar 15, 2009

Would someone PLEASE tell me how to compress a file?? I have Digital photo professional and Zoombrowser EX. Do I need to download something else? If so, what is free? And then how exactly do I do it? I know I need to reduce the number of pixels, just not how to do that.

Katier · Mar 15, 2009

Do you want to compress the file, for example to send it to someone via e:mail or reduce it's size to put into, say, a website at a size that displays properly?

boonbear · Mar 15, 2009

I need to reduce it from 5.5 mb to 2 mb to put it on a website.

AlexColeman · Mar 15, 2009

Use a stronger JPEG compression.

boonbear · Mar 15, 2009

how do I do that?

DeadEye · Mar 15, 2009

In DPP~ Select file by clicking on it _ click Batch Process _ slide image quality down to reduce file size and or use resize to reduce .

boonbear · Mar 15, 2009

Awesome. Thanks for that Deadeye. It's been driving me crazy!

dcclark · Mar 15, 2009

Also, scale your image down. If it's 5.5MB, it must be FULL size (many megapixels) coming from your camera. You can probably scale it by 50% and it will still look great onscreen -- very rarely does anyone ever view a photo full-size over the web.

Incidentally, I'm really amused that you spelled "PLEASE" all the way out, but abbreviated "help" to "hlp".

Katier · Mar 15, 2009

I wouldn't reccomend reducing the quality, what you need to understand is 'resolution'. Reducing the quality just makes the image look crap, it won't actually shrink it suitable for screen.

Your monitor is somwhere around 1024x768 to 1600x1050 pixels, where as 3008 x 2000 or more is a typical resolution straight off the camera.

What you need to do is use a graphics program ( I use Paintshop Pro on my PC and Photoshop on my Mac, it's doable in elements too but not so flexibly as the other two ) to reduce the resolution.

For example in PSP I go to the image menu, select resize. I then make sure the aspect ratio is maintained ( often a chain between the Height and Width indicates it ) and change the width of the image usually to 800 pixels.

When that's finished then I usually save as a png not a jpg as the quality is better.

boonbear · Mar 15, 2009

dcclark, Yeah, the only reason I spelled it out is that it's about the 5th time I've asked the question. I either don't get an answer or somebody beats around the bush without giving me a basic answer. "I already know I need to compress it... but HOW???" is what I've wanted to say.
Also, reducing the quality by 4 mb didn't degrade the quality at all that I can tell on a cpu screen. I understand that you don't want to reduce the quality unless you can help it, but I just needed a quick fix. I don't have psp or elements. I only have what the camera came with, and I still don't even know much about it, obviously :lol: