Downsizing the big picture
By Charles Miller 

Not long ago I had a conversation with a friend who found that the space allotted for his incoming email was not enough to handle all his mail.

 In his case, the Internet Service Provider limited him to a certain amount of space on its email server, and the digital pictures friends were sending to him took up all his allocation of space.

Both of us quickly realized that, as digital cameras have become inexpensive, they have become ubiquitous and so everyone is now emailing pictures to their friends. Microsoft Windows makes this very easy to do.

Another development as digital photography technology has improved is that high-quality images are now available from relatively inexpensive cameras. Because they are huge in size, these high-quality digital photographs are the problem when it comes to emailing.

A 5-megapixel file is desirable to make a good quality 8x10 print, but if all you are going to do is look at that picture on your computer, a huge file is not needed and is a waste of time and space.

If you use an email client such as Microsoft Outlook and attach an image file to an email, the computer will look at the size of the file and will ask if you want to make it smaller. Windows will then create a small-size copy of the big file and email the small one.

Unfortunately, Windows does not do this with browser-based email and so users of Hotmail or Yahoo who attach images to their emails usually end up sending the humongous file. What is needed is a simple way to create a small file, appropriate for emailing.


Someone at Microsoft saw this need and created a PowerToy called the “Image Resizer.” PowerToys are additional programs that software developers at Microsoft create, usually after a product has been released for sale. These programs add fun and functionality to the Windows operating system, but they are not supported by Microsoft. It says on its website that it has taken great care to ensure that PowerToys operate as they should, but they are not part of Windows and are not supported by Microsoft. For this reason, Microsoft Technical Support is unable to answer questions about PowerToys. But your “Computer Corner” columnist will.

Point your web browser to “http://tinyurl.com/2yt2” to download and install the program. Click on [Run] [Run] [Next], accept the license agreement [Next] [Next] [Next] [Install], and it is done.


When you [Finish], you will see nothing new and will notice no changes to your computer. This Microsoft PowerToy is an enhancement of the right-click menu.

Click on Start/My Pictures to find one of your digital photographs. Right-click on that picture and on the context menu you will finally find something new. In addition to the existing options to “Copy,” “Rotate Clockwise,” etc., there is now a new option to “Resize Pictures.”
Click on that and a “Resize Pictures” dialog box comes up in which you can choose to make a small, medium, or large copy of your image file. The original file will not be altered unless you tell the program to do so in the Advanced options.

If you right-clicked on a file named “Image1.jpg,” the program will create a copy named “Image1 (small).jpg.” That is the file you should email to your friends, after which you can delete the copy. After all, you still have the original humongous file.


Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044 (415) 101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.