November 29, 2001

Sending pictures as e-mail attachments has been a problem area since e-mail started so I would like to discuss some of the considerations you need to make when sending or receiving pictures as e-mail attachments.  I will keep this short and give you my suggestions to make things a lot easier.  First of all, there are many different types of file formats available for making pictures.  Some of the file extensions you will see are .bmp, .jpg, .tif, and on and on and on. 

I don't want to make this discussion too technical so let's start by talking about file associations.  When you install a program, the files it creates usually have a file extension consisting of three letters.  Windows uses these associations so it knows what program to load the file into.  For instance, if you have Microsoft Word on your computer and you double click on a file with a doc extension (example today.doc), Windows will start up the Word program and load the file into it.  Graphics files work the same way.

Before they developed the latest Internet browsers, if someone sent you a picture, you had to have the program installed which the picture came from in order to be able to open up the picture to look at it, or you had to have some graphics program which could read the picture format.  Now, Internet Explorer and Netscape support most of the common file formats and will allow you to view the picture in them. 

One of the biggest mistakes people make is to rename a picture before they attach it to an e-mail.  When they do this they usually don't include the file extension and since Windows doesn't know what program to load it in it opens up a box asking what program to open it with.  The end result, frustration because you don't know what to do.  Do not rename a picture unless you include the same 3 letter extension it had originally.  Send pictures in a .jpg format.  Bmp format pictures are too large and jpg can be viewed by almost all programs today.  If you manipulate the picture with a graphics program, many times you can take a picture in a bmp format which is say close to one megabyte in size, convert it to jpg format, change the dots per inch to 75 and set the compression level to 20 or 30 and the quality of the picture will still be just as good on the screen and the size will be about 25k. 

For those of you who just got lost, never fear, just remember to send pictures which are smaller because when you send the e-mail it will be faster and when the person on the other end receives it, it will also be faster for them.  Today, with the virus situation being what it is, lots of people delete e-mails which take a lot of time to download and some other people set their e-mail programs to refuse to download large attachments. 

Sending and receiving pictures today to keep in touch with friends and relatives is great as long as you keep a few simple rules in mind.  It's pretty cool to go down to the beach on Thanksgiving or Christmas, snap a few pictures with your digital camera, and send the pictures to the relatives to rub it in as to how tough it is being here in the winter! 

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