Emailing Photos – Is There a Better Way?
Author: Marie Christianson.
Digital cameras never existed when I was a child. In fact, I considered myself
privileged to have a Polaroid! I couldn’t wait until the white film printed out
and I could rub it on my clothes just to watch color and picture take form! Oh,
the good old days.
With that said, I find it fascinating that digital
cameras have significantly evolved over the last few years. Digital cameras are
so common that they have become part of the average telephone design today. They
are dummy proofed to the point that anybody can use one…Pretty amazing, you turn
it on, aim, and push a button. If you don’t like the picture, simply erase it by
hitting another button and try again. You can preview your pictures before you
even waste the ink printing them out.
Not only are digital cameras easy
to use, but the icing on the cake is that digital cameras are no longer just for
professional photographers. In essence, we have all become professional
photographers. Today, cameras range from under 2 mega pixels to over 6 mega
pixels. Because these cameras are affordable, consumers have now evolved to
purchasing a camera based on many other factors besides price. The size of a
camera is important. Equally important is the ease of e-mailing photos. Here are
some observations associated with e-mailing pictures..
Don’t worry about
what type of camera you purchase as it relates to e-mail capabilities. The
camera will not impact e-mail capability. That is because most picture sizes are
at least 1MG and will take forever to e-mail. Experts advertise learning the art
of file zipping. I can tell you that this is not practical because zipping 10+
pictures at a time is slow, frustrating, annoying and a waste of time. It clogs
up your e-mail and can slow your entire system down. There are other
disadvantages to e-mailing pictures. If you are trying to retrieve pictures from
a period of over 3 to 6 months, then you’ve got to dig through many e-mails,
hoping that you even saved a copy.
You will hear many experts refer to
“photo compression.” This is no different that file zipping. According to many
advertisements, “Photo compression (technically called zipping) lets you have
your cake and eat it too. A Zip program takes your originals and will compress
photos creating a "squished" copy. You can choose to compress pictures to their
original resolution (best for printing) or a reduced resolution (great for
viewing on the computer and emailing).” In laments terms, the benefits
associated with this concept are multiple photos in a single zip file.
How’s this for a simple solution? Why waste time e-mailing pictures? Why
bother zipping multiple pictures and variations of files? Check out websites
that offer services that allow you to post pictures to your family and friends.
Not only will you get the benefit of NOT having to e-mail any pictures but most
services site for so much more. Check it out, you can’t go wrong… Post your
pictures, share them with your friends and family. Don’t waste your time
e-mailing large files around the world!
Marie Christianson is a senior
business analyst at http://www.FamilyDetails.com. She has worked directly with
the family members of FamilyDetails.com’s family website service to continually
improve their service offering.