Adding your photos to a blog post, web page, ebay, etc. can be a little tricky. You cannot just upload the image file that comes right from the camera because the file size is to large to be practical. You need to downsize the image with Photoshop, Gimp, or other photo editing software. It’s time consuming and sometimes you do not get the desired results. There’s an easy way to have near perfect web ready photos and it’s free.

I use Picasa , but most online photo services will work the same way. Upload your photo to the photo service, and then view the photo online. Right click on the image and choose “save image as” and save the file to your hard drive.

Test the image on your hard drive by opening it with a photo program or web browser. If this doesn’t work right for you, you could view the photo online and use a program like Screenshot Captor to take a screen print of the photo and save the photo as a small file for the web.

You now have a web-ready optimized photo with very little work. The necessary changes have been done on the photo services side.

You could have used a link to the location of the photo on the photo services webserver, but if you use the image from your drive, you have more control. For example, the photo will not show if the photo services web server is down. I like to use downsized images for a little bit of protection for files I’d rather not have other people using high quality versions of. When you use a downsized image, it’s a little tougher for someone (but not impossible) to get a decent quality print.

I hope this article helps speed up your photo sharing.