Uploading Images

[McCormack]

Using Windows 98 I was able to upload images and post them to the net, but I recently switched over to Windows XP and now I'm not able to upload my images. I've tried to upload the images through my Gmail e-mail account to send as attachments along with my e-mails, and I've tried to upload them through Photobucket and one or two other online image services, but no-go.

I'm using an HP E427 point and shoot as my image source, and I download the images to my computer as jpeg's. When I try to upload the images I get a 'looking up Gmail (or Photobucket)' message, and my computer then just sits there and does nothing. Anybody got any suggestions?

[mwfanelli]

Using Windows 98 I was able to upload images and post them to the net, but I recently switched over to Windows XP and now I'm not able to upload my images. I've tried to upload the images through my Gmail e-mail account to send as attachments along with my e-mails, and I've tried to upload them through Photobucket and one or two other online image services, but no-go.

I'm using an HP E427 point and shoot as my image source, and I download the images to my computer as jpeg's. When I try to upload the images I get a 'looking up Gmail (or Photobucket)' message, and my computer then just sits there and does nothing. Anybody got any suggestions?

A "looking up" message that hangs indicates that your internet service can't resolve the address or can't be reached. That is a problem with your ISP, not the computer.

[McCormack]

That seems odd, because I've had the same internet provider for years and I was able to upload images before. I will however check it out to eliminate my IP as a source of the problem. Thanks.

[jorgemonkey]

Just as a random thought try turning off the XP firewall, that potentially might be blocking the upload of images

[McCormack]

That's what I was thinking too, but I turned the firewall off and it acted the same way. Which really bites, because I was so excited to finally get into the digital age with my point and shoot camera, and I was going to e-mail images to all my friends, and post pictures of the stuff I've got for sale on the various forums, and here I sit. Piece of s**t computers.

[McCormack]

So I stopped off at my local internet service provider today for some suggestions on how to get my images to upload, and one of the things that they said was that I might not be giving the images enough time to upload. So I came home and sent a test e-mail to myself with an image attached and I let her run for about a half an hour, and sure enough, this time the image uploaded. Doh!

So now my problem is that the image came out HUGE on the other end, and I had to use the horizontal and vertical scroll bars in order to view the image. Can anyone clue me in on how to shrink the image down so that the image comes out small on the other end?

[mn shutterbug]

All graphics programs have a resize function. Just locate an image button and then find the resize tab and from there, go to image size. Make sure you change the pixel dimensions. The best size for viewing full size on a PC is around 640 X 480. Once resized, you may want to save it as something else so you don't overwrite the original. A resolution of 640 X 480 doesn't print very well, even as a 4 X 6.

Good luck.

[McCormack]

OK, thanks for the resize tip. The graphics editor that comes with Windows XP doesn't have a resize option - well it does, but only to go bigger, not smaller - so can you recommend a good free graphics editor for me? I won't be doing all that much with it - just cropping and resizing and what-not - so it doesn't have to be anything too fancy. In fact the simpler the better for my pea-brain.

[mn shutterbug]

I don't know of any free ones, but Adobe Photoshop Elements is very inexpensive as is Corel Paintshop Pro. They'll both do pretty much anything you want and then more. Check Ebay. That's where I got both of mine and I believe they were only about $30-$35 each. I'm surprised your digital camera didn't come with software. That's not typical.

[McCormack]

Thanks for the included-with-the-camera software suggestion, because I checked the CD that came with the HP camera and sure enough, there's an HP Photosmart Premier 6.5 image editing program on the CD. So I'll install it and see if I can figure it out.

[McCormack]

OK then, I installed the image editor software that came with my camera and the software was a piece of crap... I couldn't even figure out how to load images into the editor. So I uninstalled it.

I then did some searching on the net and I found IrfanView, which is a free basic image editor program. So I downloaded IrfanView, opened it up, loaded an image into it, found the resize option, resized my image to 640 X 480 (thanks Minnesota scroller), sent myself a test e-mail, and it worked beautifully. Eureka!

So I'm back in the game, and I appreciate all the suggestions that were offered to help me get this thing figured out.