We’ve all experienced it…a lousy internet hookup at your campsite that makes you feel like you’ve returned to the days of dial-up. When you’re on the road it is not always easy to find a fast connection, but like many of you, I am not going to let that stop me from getting my photos up on my Trip Journal for my friends and family to see. One option is to take lower-res photos (discussed in my earlier postings) … but let’s say you want to take high-res photos, and do a quick-and-dirty upload.
So now you have a bunch of photo files, all over a megabyte each and they are taking forever to upload. So you’ve been individually resaving them in a photo editing software program to make them smaller. Well there is a much easier way…through your ordinary email program! This enables many Trip Journalers to upload thousands of photos to a single journal while on the road:
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| Fast, Easy Photo Uploads |
Windows XP
You will first open ‘My Computer’ or the applicable drive and navigate to the folder containing the pictures you wish to optimize. Then using your mouse draw a box around the group of files; use Ctrl to deselect or add any additional photos. Next, go to the ‘Tasks’ panel, click on ‘E-mail the selected items’ under ‘File and Folder Tasks’. A box will appear, Send Pictures by E-Mail and select ‘Make all my pictures smaller’. You will want to click ‘Show more options” and choose an optimal size for your pictures. For uploading to your trip journal, the small option will suffice and reduce the file to the smallest size. Please click ‘OK’. Your photos will then resize and a new mail message will appear with your attachments in your default mail program ie. Outlook. Then just fill in your email address and the reduced files will be sent to your email to upload.
Windows Vista
This is a similar process to the one mentioned above. However once you have selected your photos, you can just right click and select ‘Send to’ then ‘Mail Recipient’. A dialog box will then appear, ‘Attach Files’, asking you to choose the file size. Smaller or small are sufficient for your trip journal. The photos are resized and added as attachments in your default mail program again and ready to be sent to yourself.
Mac
If you are a Mac user, then you can accomplish this task using iPhoto. Go to iPhoto and click the Photo Library icon, and then select the photos you wish to optimize. Next, click the Email button in Toolbar and a new window will appear. In the ‘Mail Photo’ window, choose a smaller size from the menu. Click the Compose button for a new email message to open and address the email to yourself, your reduced photos will be attached.
Tip: Don’t individually save the photos from the email. Select them all and copy them into a new folder of optimized photos. Make sure it is a new folder and you do not save over any of your original photos.
Dan Parlow
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Marilyn Binkley
The slow uploading of pictures is indeed frustrating, so I tried your method of trying to email pictures to myself. Two things happened: 1) it took longer for the pictures to reach my email (overnight!) than it took for me to upload my pictures into TripJournal 2) once I got my pictures emailed to me, I didn’t really know what to do next. I have a mac and put the pictures into a folder, but didn’t know what to do with the folder. What are the next steps? thanks
Wes Sims
I use the batch processing function of photoshop elements.
1. Select and copy files to folder named “resize”
2. Process the files of that folder thru PS elements. It lets you designate size of the destination file and batch rename the files.
3. Sent the results of the resize process to a “web” folder.
4. Copy that folder to a memory stick for upload at the next I-Net Cafe.
Chris Guld
Cool tip Dan! I would still use Picasa – select all photos, click Export, choose a size and a folder 🙂 But, without that, emailing to yourself is a neat idea.