| This tutorial will teach you how to resize images without a fancy editing program. | Ever wanted to make a graphic smaller but thought you couldn't because you don't have an editing program? You probably do, and it is included in most versions of Windows being used today. It's called MS Paint. Although it may not be the best and most versatile editing program, it is free and it does work. Sometimes posting a graphic into a message stretches the post so wide, people have to scroll left to right to view it properly. The solution is to reduce the size so it will fit comfortably. It will also be a smaller file size so it will load faster. All you need to know is how to do it, and that is my goal in this tutorial. The first thing you need to do is to open the MS Paint program. Start>programs>accessories>Paint. Then using the "file" section in the upper left corner, click on "open" . You will need to know where the image is on your computer so you can "browse" to it and open it. Once the image is open and showing in the MS Paint program, you can begin the resizing process. Simply click on "image" in the toolbar at the top. Then select the "stretch/skew" option. Now a box will be showing. You need only be concerned with the "stretch" area of this box. You will see the vertical and horizontal sections both say 100%. That is the full size of the graphic as it is now. You simple delete those percentages, and enter a smaller one, using an educated guess as to the size you want. Let's use 62% as an example. Enter the same percentage into both the horizontal and vertical values, so the image doesn't get distorted. The image will now be displayed in its new size once you click on "ok". If you aren't satisfied with the size, try again with a different percentage until you get what you desire. Then simply click on "file" and "save as". Make sure the format is correct when saving. If you are saving the image to the same folder as the original, and you want to preserve the original image in it's larger size, just save the resized image with a different name. Add a 1 or something to the end of the name, otherwise you will be asked if you want to replace the original, and clicking "yes" will overwrite and replace it. Clicking "no" will cancel your newly resized image, so be sure to make note of this part. *note: recommended file types for images entered into posts are either .gif, .jpg, or .jpeg. Bitmap (.bmp) and other formats are very large file sizes, and take a long time to load. They will also use up your allotted storage space much faster. ©Woody Computing Solutions Center 2001, 2002, 2003 |