Software to compress large files?

[Deku Scrub]

I need to send several photos via email and compressing them to a zip folder does very little.
They are jpg format, and as I understand it- jpgs are already compressed.
Do I need to convert them to another format? Or is there any software that will do a better job than XP's zip folder?

Thanks for your time,
Andy

[smurfy]

Hi there. What does the email recipient intend to do with the photos?

If they are only going to view them on screen, you should shrink the resolution of the jpeg file with an image editor/converter i.e. irfanview.
Your camera would have saved the jpeg with a very high pixel x pixel resolution. To view comfortably on screen, it need be no larger than say 1024x768.
Irfanview will also allow you to increase the jpeg compression ratio. Digital cameras will (by default) use minimum compression rates to avoid loss of picture definition on the assumption you will want to print it. You can safely increase the jpeg compression if it is only intened to be viewed on screen/web.

If your email recipient will be printing the file, it is still possible to reduce the size (try not to increase the compression rate though) depending on the size of print they want to produce. I print mainly 6x4 prints using 1152x768 resolution files which are halved from the the image size my 4.1MP camera produces. If they want 8x10 glossies, then you really need to send the full size images if you can to prevent the resulting print not doing justice to the photograph.

[Deku Scrub]

Thank you for your response smurfy!


The recipient will not be printing the photos. They will be used for his referrence and possibly for his website.
I will give irfanview a try and see if that does what I want.

Thanks again,
Andy