Tips to Send, Save, Resize and Rename an Image for Arts Gallery Submission

In January, a blog was posted with helpful hints to crop or size images using MS Word. As with any suggestion, this also generates more questions. Two questions the jury often hears are, “How do I determine the file size” and “How do I resize a file to fit the gallery parameters?” In this months’ blog, we will discuss sending, saving, renaming, identifying the size of a photo and resizing a photograph on your computer.

While there are many phone apps available to assist in resizing an image, I would recommend saving your photos as well as backing them up in a folder on your computer or cloud storage where they are safe and accessible. Always backup files! SD cards, flash drives, internal and external hard drives can (and will at some point) crash/corrupt.

Let’s start with downloading your photos to a folder created on your computer. If you are using a digital camera, depending on its age, you may need a USB cable, memory card reader/card slot or if it’s a recent model, via a wireless connection. If you are looking to transfer photos from your phone to your computer, you can use the USB cable that came with your phone for charging. Without getting into lengthy detail, this is an interesting topic to google for assistance. There are many help sites as well as YouTube videos available.

The image below is a picture of a watercolor taken with a camera and sent to my iPhone via email. The following steps also apply if a picture is taken with your phone. Tap on the Photos icon to get to your picture gallery. Tap on the selected picture, which will reveal some options on the bottom of the screen. On the bottom left of this picture I will tap on the forward icon and that will give me even more options to forward the picture to my email, which I will send to myself at my Gmail account.

Also, on the bottom of the example photo is an icon, the second from the right, which

shows an “i” icon, meaning information. When I tap on this icon, it lets me know information on the photo which tells me when it was taken, and the file size as well as type of image.

This answers the question, “What size is this photo file?”  This image illustrates that this picture is 2.5 MB which falls within the parameters for the arts gallery which is a minimum of 250 through 450 KB and a maximum of 10 MB. Please note, this image needs to be cropped (to remove the matt and background) as well as rotated horizontally. This task may also be done on my phone using the “edit icon” (cropped out of this image but located at the top of the screen).

When I open my Gmail on my PC computer, download the attachment. The picture will be downloaded to the bottom of your computer. Double click or click on the arrow to open. The image will open in the windows viewer. At the very top there are options. To the far right you will see three dots, “see more”. Drop down and click on “save image as”. Another window opens that will allow me to name the picture, below the picture, choose the type of file which is JPEG image and where you intend to save the image. In this case, I click on desktop and then choose my premade folder, click to open and then save. 

Other options that are shown in the MS window’s viewer. The first icon on the left will allow me to edit the image (this allows me to crop, rotate and adjust the image. Again, if I click on the very last icon which is three dots, “see more”, scroll down to “resize image”, another window will come up, showing me the option to resize the file if necessary. Remember to save your work.

When using my Mac, the process has a few variations. When I click on my email, it shows an attachment. When I hover over the attachment, I select download, in which it goes to the bottom of my screen. I click on the drop arrow to open it. The view options are similar. On the top options bar, click on the arrow next to the title.jpg which gives me a drop-down window. This allows me to save the photo to my pre-made folder. When I open the folder, it shows me the name, date and image size. When I double click on my image, the image viewer takes over.

At the very top of the screen is the preview bar, go to tools, then drop down to adjust size, enter the new values or click on the “fit into” pop up menu and choose a size. Then hit OK.

My picture is now cropped, sized, renamed, and saved for submission.

We look forward to viewing your creative vision! Be sure to use the comment section below to suggest new topics, ask questions, or give us your input. We love hearing from our readers and gaining new ones.  Spread the word!