Images for the Net

"Image File Size Too Large"

Have you ever recieved tis message when trying to upload an image file to a website?

You're not alone.

In today's market, almost everyone with a cell phone has the ability to capture images and be able to post them on the net.

So, why can't I post images I took with my camera?

The answer to that is simple; Image File Size.

Since you are capturing, viewing and sharing images with your cel phone, your primary intention is not to be reproducing these images into printed 8 X 10 glossy's or having them blown up to the size of wall murals. No, your primary intention is to view and share them over the net.

This means the size of the image file size should be small enough to be sent through the net quickly, because if the file took too long to load, you would lose interest real quickly.

Now, pictures taken with a full featured camera are a different story. These images are designed for their quality and detail so the can be reproduced into large printed pictures, portraits or murals, if you wish.

The issue now is how to share them over the net?

Someone said "I have a picture that's 650px X 480px and that makes it 312,000px or 312 megapixels. So, if I shrunk it down to 300px X 200px, that should do it."

Sorry, that didn't change the file size, only the picture size.

What you have to look at is the size of the file which is in bytes (B) kilobytes (KB) or megabytes (MB). The larger the file size, the longer it takes to transfer that file. Many on-line applications will limit your file size to 50MB or smaller.

"How about changing the file format? If I took my high quality .jpg image and converted it to a .png, would that help?"

Yes, there are different file formats that have their unique uses, but that too will have little to no affect on actual file size.

Wikipedia entries for each of the formats will give you quite a bit of information:

JPEG (or JPG, for the file extension; Joint Photographic Experts Group)
PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
BMP (Bitmap)
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
TIFF (or TIF, for the file extension; Tagged Image File Format)

Don't worry, it's confusing to a lot of us.

So, how do you reduce the file size?

To start with, if you were using a camera (not your phone) and knew that you were going to upload it to a site or send it to friends on the web, you would set the camera to its lower settings designed for internet sharing. These settings would take a less detailed image and compress the file into a smaller package or file size. If you are using your phone, check the settings to see if it allows you to make smaller or compressied files. It would also save you memory space.

If you already have a high quality image you want to use, the solution is 'file compression'. There are many ways of compressing a file but many require uncompressing the file so you can view it and that doesn't do you any good.

You can also buy programs that have that capability, but that's not practicle if you're going to use it only once or twice.

I did some searching 'out there' for some answers and so far, I found a few that are on-line and free;

If you know of any more or have some additional ideas, please add them to the comments below.

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