Many people are what I tend to think of as graphics-challenged. They may read about how to resize their photos over and over and yet, when it’s really time to email that special photo to their friends, they don’t bother making the image smaller. Over time, these graphics-challenged people discover that any friends they ever had who use dial-up Internet service refuse to open their emails.
Although I have broadband service now, I had 26K dial-up service for a long, long time, so I was one of those annoyed recipients. Getting a 2MB photo on dial-up is an agonizing experience.
Here’s a solution for Outlook Express users who refuse to resize images. It’s so quick and so easy that truly anyone can do it, assuming you can right-click. First open up My Computer or Windows Explorer and find the photo you want to send in the list. Now right-click and choose Send To and then Mail Recipient.
A new window appears that has an option that says “Make my pictures smaller.” Make sure this option is selected (and not “Keep the original size.”) If you click the Show more options link at the bottom of the window, you also can select from small, medium or large. When you click OK and Windows creates a new email message in Outlook Express with your image file as an attachment.
Although this tip works with Outlook Express, it may not do anything if you use another email client. If nothing happens when you choose Send To Mail Recipient, you may have a different email program set up as your default. Go into Internet Explorer and choose Tools|Internet Options. In the Programs tab, make sure that Outlook Express is selected next to E-mail and click Apply and then OK.