Emailing higher resolution pictures in Picasa

Don't you wish you could see the faces of these darling children from Guyana?

Do you want to avoid emailing photos that turn out like this?

I know - I exaggerated the problem by making this photo very very low resolution - but you can limit the impact and usability of photos by sending them in small sizes.

Photo size is most often measured by pixels - that is dots per inch. This is also known as resolution. Optimal resolution depends on the end use of the photo. Here is what I like:

For presentations, I like the largest dimension to be at least 1000 pixels.

For printing, full resolution is best.

If you are using Picasa to host and email your photos, here is how to adjust resolution (from the Picasa help website):


Sending multiple photos at once:

1. In Picasa, click Tools > Options (Windows) or Picasa > Preferences (Mac).
2. Select the Email tab.
3. Use the slider to set your desired pixel size when emailing multiple photos. Use the radio buttons to set the desired pixel size for emailing single photos.
4. Click OK.

Sending one photo at a time - the only way to get full resolution:

You can email a photo in its full resolution using Picasa, however you can only send one full resolution photo at a time. Please follow these steps to set your email options to send photos in their original size:

1. Click Tools > Options (Windows) or Picasa > Preferences (Mac).
2. Select the Email tab.
3. Under 'When sending single pictures, resize to:' (Windows) or 'Size for single pictures' (Mac), select the 'Original Size' option.
4. Click OK.

Once this option is selected, any single photo you send using Picasa will be in full resolution. It's not possible to send multiple photos at once in their original sizes.