The pictures that come directly from a digital camera are usually very, very large, often several MB (mega bytes). This is so those images can be printed using photo quality printers which need more data to make crisp clear prints. On the other hand, a digital photo on a computer screen will still look good, even though the image has been compressed. Therefore, the images that you upload should probably re-sized and saved with higher compression, than the files that originally were created by a digital camera. Performing this transformation on your images is currently beyond the scope of the document. However, check the links section for some other resources.

If you have photo editing software that came with your camera, there is often an easy way to get photos "web ready." Essentially, you want to change two attributes: dimensions in pixels, and jpeg compression level.

Changing the dimensions is often done with a tool in photo editing software called "re-size" or "scale." Reasonable sizes for photos on the web would be 320x240, 640x480, or 800x600. Given the choice between larger or smaller, smaller is better as this avoids scrolling the screen too much for people with lower desktop screen size settings. Additionally, keeping the images smaller in dimensions also makes the files themselves smaller in bytes. This is good because smaller files on websites load faster.

Changing the compression level can usually be done when you get ready to save the image. You'll want to make sure you choose "Save As," and change the name of the saved file to ensure you don't overwrite your original image. When you do this with a jpeg image, typically the dialog box that comes up has a setting for "compression" or "quality." If you change this setting to a lower level, such as around 50%, the file saved will have a much smaller file size in terms of bytes. If you don't see anything like "compression" or "quality" on the dialog, see if you have an "Options" button. This setting may be there. Also, It may not have numerical values. It could have something like "highest compression, lowest quality." Experiment with these settings until you are getting the results you want. Always remember to change the file name in some way so you don't overwrite your original image.