Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Still, if you want to be sure that people who view your photo onscreen won't have to scroll to
see the whole thing, a good rule of thumb is to make the longest side of the photo no more
than 650 pixels (it doesn't matter whether that's the width or the height). And if you want
people to be able to see more than one image at a time, you may want to make your photos
smaller than that. Also, some people still set their monitors to display only 800 pixels wide
by 600 pixels high, so you may want to create even smaller images to send to them.
On the other hand, if you send really small pictures to people with deluxe, high-resolution
monitors or high-end smartphones where the individual pixels are minuscule, they're likely
to complain that the photos are too tiny to see in detail. So if you send to a varied group of
folks, you may need to make different copies for different audiences. On the whole, it's bet-
ter to err on the side of caution—nobody will have trouble receiving and opening an image
that's too small, but an overly large attachment can cause problems for people with small
mailboxes and low-resolution monitors.
TIP
To get the most accurate look at how your photo displays on a monitor, go to View→Ac-
tual Pixels.
Also, although a photo always has the same pixel dimensions, you can't control the exact
physical dimensions at which those pixels display on other people's monitors. A pixel is al-
ways the same size on any given monitor (as long as you don't change the monitor's screen
resolution), but different monitors have different-sized pixels.
Figure 3-21
may help clarify
this concept.
