Recipe 11.11. Processing Images for Email and the Web

Problem

You want to use images on a web site, or to send via email, but the images are so large that they would make a web page load very slowly, or would take too long to send via email.

Solution

Using downloadable software

ImageConverter.EXE (available from http://www.stintercorp.com/genx/imageconverter.php) is a great tool for converting files for use on the Web, because it shows you a side-by-side comparison of the before-and-after images, before you do the actual conversion, and also displays the size of each image. That way, before you do the conversion, you can keep tweaking it until you have it at the size and quality you want. To convert an image:

1. Click the Open button, browse to the file you want to convert, and click Open. The graphic will be displayed in two panes the left-hand pane, which shows you the original graphic, and the right-hand pane, which shows you how the graphic will look after it's converted. Note that underneath each picture, you will see the file size.

2. In the Conversion Settings section, choose the file type to which you want to convert the file. If you're going to post the graphic on the Web, you should choose JPEG, GIF, or PNG.

3. In the Bits per Pixel box, choose 1, 4, 8, or 24. The more bits per pixel, the higher the image quality, but the larger the picture. As you choose different image qualities, the preview picture will alter, and the preview size will change.

4. If you want to add special effects to the picture, choose them from the Effect section. As you choose them, the effects will be added to the preview picture, and its preview size will change as well.

5. When you're satisfied with balance between file size and image quality, click the Convert button. The file will be converted to the new format.

Figure 11-10 shows an example of the program converting a TIFF file to a JPEG file, and shrinking the file size not its dimensions, but the total number of bytes. The image has been shrunk from 295 K down to 10 K, yet the image quality is not dramatically different.

Figure 11-10. Doing a side-by-side comparison of image quality and size before doing the conversion will help you determine what image quality to choose, and find out the resulting file size

Discussion

ImageConverter.EXE is shareware, and is free to try, but you're expected to pay $35 if you keep using it. So why bother with software that costs money instead of a piece of freeware like IrfanView? IrfanView can't display before-and-after pictures of the graphic you're converting. So you can't, for example, preview what the converted picture will look like after it is converted. This can make image conversion a hit-or-miss affair: you'll first have to choose your conversion options, then convert the image, and then finally look at the output. If you're not happy with the results, you have to start back at the beginning, choose different options, and hope this one works.

ImageConverter.EXE does batch conversions, as well as letting you convert files one at a time. It also lets you edit and add a wide variety of special effects when you convert, such as changing the color depth and contrast, adding a motion blur, posterizing the image and more.

See Also

Paint Shop Pro (http://www.paintshoppro.com) is an excellent all-around graphics program that also does image conversion, including batch image conversion. It's shareware and free to try, but has a registration fee of $99.