Week 3 posts - niagara falls

In order to take the 8megpixel picture to a state where it's usable on the web, there are a few steps you need to take to manipulate the image.

1) Upload the picture from your camera's memory to your computer hard drive. This is usually done with a cable (USB or something else with letters) connecting your camera to your computer (some are even wireless, but an image this big will take days...). save it to the right folder and don't forget where you put it.
2) open the picture in Photoshop or something similar. don't let the image size on the page fool you...check your magnification level (it's probably 30% or something).
3) make a copy of your picture and save it in the 'native' format (in photoshop, it's .psd). Save it at a bigger size than you're probably going to need...you may want a bigger one later, and you're going to be fiddling with it.
4) using the cropping tool in Photoshop select the part of the picture you want to publish (in this case, the falls without the yokels, the angry drag queen, and the guy with the gray and pink Bermudas). save it again with a different name in case you decide you want the bermuda shorts after all.
5) select the option "Save for Web..." from the File menu. This will bring you to another window where you can select the file format, parameters of this format, and size.
6) select the file format of JPEG (this picture wouldn't lend itself to GIF), pick your quality (better is bigger), make it "progressive" (this will make it less annoying to load on someone's browser if their connection is slow), and pick your image size.
7) The screen will give you a sample view...this will allow you to view the effects od your settings. If it's all good, save your JPEG version of the file.
8) you're done. Go do the lawn.