A couple of chatline members who have been severely
inconvenienced by the transmission of very large files have suggested that I
resend the below message from (was it indeed, Great Scot!, May 2005?). It
could benefit from some updating, but please just note the general drift.
I notice that conventions have changed and the ? ___? Should be “
____”.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
At David McDonald's suggestion and in consultation with
David Cook I have slightly revised and expanded an earlier message about
making use of the list to share bird photos. With much greater
enthusiasm for snapping birds as a result of digital gear, I anticipate
there will be a lot more pics obtained that will be worth putting
around. My suggestions are set out below and are in the same form in
the enclosed word doct.
Guidelines for sending bird photos on canberrabirds
chatline
1) Photos of some current interest are suitable for
the list, such as those showing rare visitors, or unusual behaviour, or
subjects where help is sought with identification.
2) Unless the pic has current news value, consider
sending it to the COG Photogallery
rather than emailing to the list. There are no set size limits for
sending to the gallery, as any necessary resizing is done by David Cook.
Photos are normally displayed promptly.
3) Photo attachments to emails to the list should not
be more than 100kb.
4) The following points may assist in reducing the
size of bird photos:
·
A picture simply transferred from digital camera memory or a scanner
will usually be too large to email but can be edited by a simple graphics
program (the kind supplied with many digital cameras) to produce a ?jpeg? image
of appropriate size.
·
?Editing? in this sense need not affect the original image, but involves
producing an additional version that is suitable for emailing.
·
Reduce the amount of information in the image by cropping it to show
only relevant detail eg in most cases just the bird will be sufficient, with
minimum background. This will probably also reduce the dimensions
of the image.
·
Further reduce the dimensions of the image (by using ?resize? or ?save
as? options). Dimensions might be expressed in cms, inches or pixels.
A pixel size of 300x200 that is ?mainly bird? will generally be large enough in
most cases for viewing on a monitor, even though it might not enlarge or print
with good quality. A jpeg image more than 600 wide might be too big for
convenient viewing on the monitor at the receiving end.
·
The two above steps will generally achieve an image of less
than.100kb. If the file-size is still too big, consider reducing the resolution
of the image. How this is done will depend on the editing program,
but it might be achieved by applying a degree of ?compression?, by selecting a
standard such as ?medium? or ?low? rather than ?high?, by reducing the pixels
per inch or centimetre, or by using some other resolution scale however expressed.
Sometimes when an image is ?saved? or ?saved as? this will of itself alter the
size of the file ? either up or down.
·
At the stage of sending the image, your program might give you an
opportunity to specify the dimensions for sending eg ?actual size?,
?full screen?, ?quarter screen? and/or at a specified width in pixels.
This is another way of controlling dimensions, that can be used instead of or
additionally to that indicated above.
5) If you have not had much experience in editing and
emailing photos, you may wish to experiment. You can discard the results
? and your original image need not be affected, although you may wish to make a
copy to work on as a precaution. You can also practise by emailing an
image to yourself to see how it will look, and how large it is, when received.
6) When replying to or commenting on messages with
pics, take care not to resend the pic unnecessarily. This can
easily be overlooked if the pic is embedded in the original message rather than
an attachment. If your reply settings do not automatically delete the
pic, you will need to do this manually.
Geoffrey Dabb
email : m("iinet.net.au","gdabb");">
ph/fax : 02 6295 3449
emailing bird photos.doc
Description: MS-Word document
