Part of the
Kenno's Blog series.
By Ken Brown
Editor, You Can Learn Series
Updated: November 9, 2007
Easy Way to Convert Your Images
Are you looking for an easy way to convert your images for use on your web
pages? This article was prompted by a couple of experiences I have had
recently. I have a cousin named Peggy who is building her first web site for
her booming embroidery business. She sent me a link to review, looking for any
tips or hints I could provide. The website was good, but one of the pages had a
number of images on it that were huge in size. I was running a T1 line and the
page was taking a long time to load.
The page needed work on the image sizes. I offered a tool that I use all the
time to convert images for my website. The experts recommend a page size not
exceed 50k. If you have a single image that is 2 or 3 times larger, then you
have a problem.
The second experience I had was with my mother in law. She creates all her own
greeting cards. She has a number of programs that were given to her over the
years to make the process of creating greeting cards easier. Which program does
she like best? The original program she received. Why? Because it allows her
more flexibility to do what she wants to do. She only has one problem. She
doesn't like the capabilities she has converting images to the size she needs
for each greeting card.
What Program do I Use?
I recommend the same software to both of them. What program do I use? The tool,
IrFanView. It is one of the most popular viewers worldwide. It
is Freeware to non-commercial sites. I donate money to them because I like it
so much and because I use it for this website.
IrFanView is Actually a Viewer
IrFanView is actually a viewer. I can honestly say I don't use it for viewing.
I only use it for manipulating images. For converting image sizes it can't be
beat. You can throw an image into it quickly, resize the image, crop the image
and even convert the images from one format such as jpg to another format like
gif.
How do you resize an image? Easy. Choose Menu item, File Open. Find the image
you want to manipulate. Once the image is in the viewer window then choose Menu
item - Image Resize/Resample. This screen will give you the choices you need to
convert the image to just about any size you want. You can change size by a
percentage of its current size, a specific size you need or you can choose from
a range of standard sizes. Make the choices you want and then save the
converted image.
Small Learning Curve
It is fast. It is easy. There is a very small learning curve. I would say you
can be an expert in about 5 minutes. The rest is just having fun. My mother in
law loves it. She picked up on it quickly with very little training. She didn't
start using computers until she was 75 years old. So, if she can pick up on it,
certainly you won't have any problems.
Get your images converted to new file formats, file sizes and get those images
on your website quickly. Use IrFanView as your image software tool of choice.
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