Why resize images before emailing or web publishing?

Click here to see WHY YOU SHOULD NOT publish full-resolution images to the web or send via email:
Warning: page weighs 655k (But if you were referred to this page, you probably don't give a damn anyway, at least not yet.)

• Windows XP: Image Resizer Powertoy (521kb)
• Windows Vista: VSO Image Resizer(5.7mb) - (Does this work on Windows 7? I'd appreciate it if If someone lets me know.)

Problem:

Is this enjoyable to look at? (I don't think it is.) Believe it or not, it's supposed to be a photo of a cute little boy.  But this is what I see (part of a human head) when opening a photo several  times larger than my screen can display.

The image is about eight times larger than the screen it was intended to be viewed on. At its full and natural image size, the entire photo cannot be viewed. Instead, the user must scroll all over the screen to see different parts. Not fun. Realistically, most people use software with an automatic "shrik-to-fit" feature. You may not notice that the image is really much, much larger than it needs to be. Sending anything larger than someone's display is simply wasteful, it's overkill, and often by a factor of 10x or more!  It's best to send images that are smaller than the screen, in order to leave room for other screen elements like the Title Bars, Menu Bars, toolbars, etc.

And this next one is one is 533 times smaller than its original (click to see).

Most people have their video (Display Settings) set to 1024 x 768. Any photo larger than this would overlap the viewable area.  A 7-megapixel camera can shoot images NINE times this size! (3072 x 2304) and the photos can weigh as much as five megabytes! (that's over 5000kb!)

I might be completely wrong but...
Most people who receive baby pictures are not really interested in examining your kid's cheek hairs at a microscopic level. We want to quickly see your baby's face, smile, and then get on with our lives. In the photo of your dog, I'm not that interested in locating fleas or doggie dandruff. I want to see the cute pup and quickly send a reply. Instead, I might have to take steps to purge the large email from mail server so other important emails can get through, instead of being blocked by your mongrel.  Grrrrr.

Why would someone share an image several times larger than a computer display that weighs upwards of ten times what it should* weigh? (*if appropriately-sized.)

Possible Reasons:

• The most common reason: They just don't know any better. (aka ignorance). This web page is the cure.
• The least likely reason: It's intended to be printed on a high-quality printer for publication. 

Results of careless camera and email use:

• Images get sent that are several times larger than the screens they're intended to be viewed on.
• Hogging bandwidth, needlessly.
• Slowed Internet connections.
  • Clogged inboxes (often putting them over quota) and slowing or stopping the delivery of email messages.
• Bringing corporate email servers down (or to a crawl).
  I have first-hand experience of this. It happens when one over-weight email (usually with hi-res images) is distributed to a number of users on the same office network. This is a serious waste of network resources! Photos are best SAVED to a shared location for viewing by all the users, not REPLICATED hundreds of times (via email) on the same network.  Such redundancy is an extremely inefficient use of technology!

Bandwidth examples:
Just one 4mb email (just two regular from my camera, not resized) x 100 users generates at least 400mb of network traffic. A 10mb email (5 photos) sent to 200 users in an office equals at least 2gb (over 2000 megabytes) of bandwidth. To put this in perspective, that's double the website traffic (bandwidth) my provider allows me to use in one month! More perspective? I have entire photo sites containing 50+ photos that weigh less than some of the individual photos I sometimes receive.

Solution:

Resize photos before emailing or posting on the Internet.
Free solutions for everyone!

• For Windows XP: I recommend the Image Resizer, a WindowsXP Powertoy from Microsoft.
• For Windows Vista:VSO Image Resizer for Windows Vista (5.7mb)
• For Apple/Mac users: Rapidoresizer
• Picasa works with Windows XP and Windows Vista, Mac and Ubuntu! This great program from Google is perfect for indexing, quickly locating and viewing your images. It also has some great yet simple to use editing functionality. Highly recommended.

The Image Resizer is exceptionally easy to use and it weighs just 521k. (That's much smaller than most of the oversized photos being carelessly distributed each day through the Internet.)

How to use the Image Resizer for XP: (VSO works similarly)

1. Select image files (Ctrl+click)
2. Right-Click on one of the selected files
3. Pick Resize Pictures from the context menu that pops up
   
   
4. Choose desired size. (I recommend Small or Medium for most purposes.)
   

It's really that easy!