This page provides tips and suggestions to try and make the process as easy as possible for getting your photos ready for publishing in your profile.
Getting the Photos for your Profile
If you already have a number of fairly recent
photos of yourself on hand, great you're on your way and you can jump to the next section ... Resizing Photos for the Web. If you don't,
well you're going to have to get some taken and there's a variety of options for taking photos these days, including conventional 35mm cameras, digital cameras and even a webcam.
1. Try and find a friend or family member with a 35mm or digital camera that would be willing to either loan it to you
or take the photos for you - a digital camera is preferable because they produce high quality photos that are ready to use on your PC and don't require developing.
2. Buy a cheap disposable camera and when you get them developed ask to have them scanned onto a
disk or CD for you - most places nowadays offer this service.
3. Most webcams can take digital still photos - cheaper webcams usually don't produce the best
quality, but usually you can get acceptable results and it's still better than nothing, experimenting with
room lighting can also help produce better results. Ebay has thousands of webcams available with lots of
cheaper cams that can be had for under $30 (just make sure it has still photo capabilities, most do). Ebay Webcam Search
4. Photos from cell phones - many cell phones these days are capable of taking photos which you can also use. Phone cameras usually aren't the best of quality, but again you can often get acceptable results and it's still better than nothing.
How can I get photos off my cell phone to my PC so I can upload them?
Most camera phones have the ability to send photos in the form of an email. The process will vary slightly from phone to phone, but the basic concept is the same.
- Go to the picture gallery and select a picture to send.
- Click options, then click Send.
- Place your e-mail address in the "To:" field, and hit send.
If you have any problems refer to your telephone manual for instructions.
If your phone has USB capabilities and you have the proper adapter you can transfer photos directly to your PC, so check your manual or cell phone dealer to see if yours does.
Resizing Photos for the Web
If you already have some conventional photo prints you'll need to scan them onto a disc or your hard drive and then resize them. If you don't have access to a scanner you can take take them to most any photo outlet and have them scanned to a disk or CD usually for a very moderate fee.
Modern digital cameras take huge photos that are megapixels in size which is great for high quality
printing, but way too large for uploading and displaying on web pages. Most scanners and digital cameras
provides software for editing your photos but many people find it daunting and frustrating stumbling
through complex graphics programs just to resize their images for the web. Below are some freeware
programs designed just for this purpose, they have been researched and chosen for their ease of use and
effectiveness for getting the job done quickly and without any lengthy or complex learning curves, and best of all they are FREE!
Notice and Disclaimer: We assume no responsibility for any problems you may have for your decision in using these programs. Although we have initially checked these programs for spyware, adware and viruses, we do not monitor them on a regular basis and therefore it's advisable that you scan them with your anti-virus and/or spyware programs before you unpack or install them.
Basic Resizing Tools:
These tools are extremely easy to use and can resize your photos and make them ready to upload to the web by just making a few setting selections and a click of a button. Both of these programs have been chosen for their effectiveness of getting the job done with ease and for having a very minimal learning curve even for the novice. Both programs listed below are about equal in producing similar results and quality. PIXresizer has a few more options, but Photo Razor is slightly easier to use.
PIXresizer 100% FREE
Photo Razor 100% FREE (the one we recommend and use ourselves) Click Here to see a screenshot
Photo Editing Tools:
If you want to crop or retouch your photos or enhance the colors or the brightness, remove "red eye",
add special effects, etc. you'll need to use more complex photo/image editing software or a paint program. If you don't have such software or the one you have is just too complicated to use, try Photoscape which is 100% freeware. Photoscape has features comparable to many of the commercial photo editing programs but is generally considered easier to learn and work with than many others in it's field.
Photoscape 100% FREE
Special Note:
When resizing your photos for your profile just make sure they don't exceed the maximum allowed size limitations, which is 150kb per photo which should be more than suffice for most photos that have been resized by using the above tools to approximately 600x400 pixels. Photos should also be in JPEG (.jpg) format.
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