How to email photos

Emailing photos made easy

Emailing photos sounds easy enough but if you’ve ever tried it you’ll know it’s actually fraught with problems. 

Just sending a couple of high resolution images is often enough to make the email take what seems like all day to upload, only to have them bounce back later in the day due to limits on size imposed by your internet service provider (ISP). 

Even if they are successfully delivered, give some thought to the recipient who has to go through a similarly frustrating time to download the images at the other end. 

Why Photoshop Elements?

The program we've used, Adobe Photoshop Elements, has a pretty neat email feature that allows you to compress a number of images, thus reducing file sizes, along with frayed tempers in equal amounts. 

Besides, Elements combines nicely with your Contact Book and Outlook (or your default email program, whatever that may be), making it both a seamless and fairly painless task. 

We’ve chosen Elements 6 for this tutorial, but versions 4 and 5 are similar, albeit with their different looking workspace.

Step-by-step guide to emailing photos

1Select your images

Select the images you want to email from the organiser (Ctrl + click each image). 

Or open the images from the Editor using File > Open, then select using Ctrl + click and then clicking Open. 

Now select Share from the 'Palette Bin' (or toolbar in versions 4 and 5), and click on the E-mail Attachments button. 

2Choose your email program

If at this point you see a dialog box asking to select your email program, simply make your choice and select Continue. 

Don’t worry if a dialog box doesn’t open, as Elements will likely use the built-in Adobe E-mail Service. 

If you want to change the email program it uses, select Edit > Preferences > Organise & Share. 

Then from the Preferences window select Sharing and from the 'E-mail Client' option under 'E-mail Settings', select your email utility.

3Organise

The Organiser should now be open with your chosen images appearing as thumbnails in a window under the heading E-mail Attachments. 

You can, if you wish, add or move snaps here by simply clicking and dragging thumbnails from the Organiser window to the window containing your previously chosen images. 

Any snaps you want to remove at this point, highlight by clicking on (or use Ctrl + click for more than one) and then hit the minus (-) button located directly opposite the Items tag.

4Choose the size

This is the important bit, as listed below your chosen images are two choices that affect the file size of each image and thus the resulting email attachment. 

If you know the recipient will simply view the images on their computer screen rather than print them, select either the Small (640 x 480 px) or Medium (800 x 600 px) photo size, and set a Medium (6 or 7) quality by dragging the slider. 

If the images are likely to be printed, choose the Very Big Photo size (1280 x 960 px) instead, and, if your connection is slow, try to limit the number you send to around half a dozen or less at a time.

5Add a message

Elements also allows you to add a message to your email from within the Editor. 

Simply type your message in the Message section at the top of the panel or use the default message and it will be included in the email, along with your snaps. 

You can add or remove snaps for a third time, even at this late stage. 

Simply highlight to remove or add photos, using the appropriate plus or minus (+/-) button located top-right of the E-mail Attachments window.

6Select who to send to

To select who you would like to receive the email and snaps, click on the Figure icon to the right of Select Recipients and either import contacts from your chosen email utility or add a new contact using the box provided. 

After the contacts have been added, return to the Select Recipients panel and click the checkbox next to the addressee. 

Leave the Save As Quick Share Flow option to set to No, unless you want to set up a group of people to send photos to on a regular basis.

7Send

Click Next at the bottom of the panel. 

You’ll find your email program launches complete with your chosen snaps and message. 

Click Send from the email program. 

You should find your images speeding off.

For tips on building your confidence with your PC, including advice on organising and sharing your photos, buy Computing Made Easy for the Over 50s.