Of Adding Pictures to the Journal

I finally found out how to add pictures to my journal... big ones like Joe uses at his website. Today he wrote an entry that explained all about it, just as I was considering checking out another blog website. So, as I read and reread his instructions, I began to think about how I save my photos, or even how I take my photos.

Just last week I was talking to our Youth Group leader about taking candid photos for our church directory. I had been walking into each Sunday School classroom to take photos of our members and visitors in Sunday School. Good thing I talked to him first, though, for he mentioned to me that the people printing the book need our pictures to be shot using the highest quality (highest pixel numbers), so I checked my digital camera to make sure it was at the higher setting, wondering why anyone would want to select a lower quality setting for their pictures.

After reading Joe's entry about adding pictures to our journals, I know the answer to that question. Joe says this:

"Size-wise, for your typical three-column Journal (which is a left sidebar, a center column, and a right sidebar), a good photo width is about 450 pixels wide. Also, don't forget to try to keep the file size down -- ideally, you want to save it at the lowest JPEG image quality that still preserves the look of the photo (that is, it doesn't introduce the weird jaggies called Compression artifacts).

Oh, and one more thing -- photos are typically better saved as JPEG files; drawings usually do better as GIF files."

So when I take pictures that I want to print on paper, I need to change my camera setting to the higher quality number, and when I'm planning on using the pictures in my journal, I should set the camera to the lower quality setting.

Question, Joe: What if I want to do both? Can I change the pixel number after I have saved the photo to my ZoomBrowser photo edit program? When I take pictures I'm not usually thinking "These are going to be printed, or these are going in my journal." Most of the time, they don't go anywhere beyond my photo album program. They are there waiting for me to play with them, and this journal gives me the opportunity to do that. However, for nearly two years now I have been shooting all my pictures as though they would someday be printed, the high quality setting.

Can I ever use them in my journal using the method you explained in your entry, Joe?

I tried using the File Manager, but when I came to the part where I select the pictures I want to upload, nothing uploaded. I wondered then if it was because the four pictures I had selected had the larger number pixel width.

Seriously, I am very interested in using photos in my journal because I like to take pictures as much as I like to write!

I will be back with a very large picture in here one day!