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Using Your Digital Camera On Your Computer On The Internet

     One of the biggest advances in the computer field is in digital photography. The price of a digital camera is such that most everyone can afford one and save their pictures to the computer. If purchasing a digital camera, get one with a removable media card of some sort so you can remove the card and put it in a "card reader" to transfer your photos to the computer. Hooking your camera to the computer to upload your pictures eats batteries and card readers can be picked up for under $20. Also, buy a digital camera that has a common battery size like AA so you can use rechargeable batteries. Keep 2 sets of batteries so you have a charged set.
     Buy the camera that has the most OPTICAL zoom you can afford. This is better than digital zoom. An optical zoom of 4X or higher is desired. Also, buy the camera with the highest megapixels you can afford. These are like the lines of resolution on your TV. The more megapixels in a photo, the greater the resolution, and if you order prints, you will be able to enlarge the photos to poster size if you want.

     Now the bad news. High resolution photos are large files and take up a lot of space on the computer. A 5 megapixel camera, for example, can take photos that are around 3 megabytes or better. To put that in context, it would take 3 floppy discs just to hold 1 photo! Much too large for Email or other internet uses. Picture files must be made smaller in size as well as file size to use on the web.
     Now the good news. There is a FREE photo editing program to edit and resize your photos. It is called IrfanView and can be downloaded free HERE. (Make sure to also download the plug-ins) To make your photos ready for Email, open IrfanView and click on "File", then "Open". Then click on "Image", the "Resize/Resample". On this page you will find many ways to resize your photos, but the "640 X 480" is about the maximum size for regular email. The optimal size for an Email photo or web page is around 400 X 400. After you resize your photo, click "File", then "Save As". Give your resized photo a new name and your original photo will not be affected.