Sylvia,
You paste the registration number in the small popup window just above where it says "registration key", if I recall correctly.
It is a little tricky, because IIRC there is no dotted line or marked field to put it in, but try it, and I am sure you will succeed.

Good luck.

consuela

Anthony: someone also needs to give you the bad news about. . . cropping. I haven't the time here to demolish all your prejudices in detail so will simply point out that the quality of a cropped large file-size image is immeasurably better than the quality of a cropped small file-size image when taken by cameras of equal lens and sensor capability.

Evidently from your comments, you don't do post-processing and have never cropped to refine or improve a shot's original composition. Me, I'm not clever enough to take the perfectly-composed picture every time, hence why I crop afterwards from 24Mb images. It's not stupidity on my part, nor is it snobbishness. Just a desire of mine to get a picture looking. . . right.

As to those chasing Mb output size for the sake of it, there are always going to be some who fail to comprehend that the calibre of a camera's lens and the size of its light-catching sensor are leading determinants of image output quality. However, not everyone is in that category, so treating them as if they're all a bunch of ignoramusses is uncalled-for.

Anthony, I believe you are mixing up megapixels (MP) with megabytes (MB).

Anthony, the benefit of this software is not to save space on your hard drive, but to make uploads smaller so web pages load faster, and ebooks smaller so the distributed files are smaller, etc. Shooting at minimum resolution might be fine if all you ever want to take is snapshots, but if one of the photos you take at Tommy's 4th birthday is really special and you've shot it at 2mb but want to make a large print later, you're out of luck. And generally 2mb is not sufficient for an 8x10 unless you're looking at it from several feet away. I've made some okay 8x10 prints from my ancient 3mb files, but it took a lot of file massaging to do it.

Anthony,

Actually, I find that the "resizer" built into the Windows operating system gives the best combination of file size reduction with minimum quality reduction of anything else that I have seen. AND, it's built into the system - - - - - no new software required.

MikeR, So very true. I see the point if you are talking about the typical point and shoot camera where the main function is selfies and snapshots of family events. However, for someone doing more serious photography, it is ALL about the DPI (dots per inch) and the more you have the better the print. Also, metadata is important to many of us, depending on how and where your files exist. Something that strips "unnecessary" metadata is not a desirable thing in this case either. I am truly leary of anything that offers to rid my files of what they deem unnecessary automatically.

MikeR,

What you said is only true, if that is what you want to believe. The only way that cropping would have a detrimental effect on the image quality, is by using a fish-eye lens and shooting a subject that is half a mile away. For regular shooting/cropping, it makes not a bit of difference in the world. The old Nikon D1 (one megapixel) camera takes just as good a photo as the 40+ megapixel camera's we see today. I crop all the time with both of my D5300 and D7000, and they look just fine, especially when you are not being paid money to take the pictures in the first place. 9 out of 10 users of these fancy camera's, never take them off "auto" anyway, if they did, they would get lost and have disastrous results, no matter what format they choose. At night, their pictures would be automatically shooting in H2 ISO and look washed out and grainy, and they wouldn't have the slightest clue as to why.

As for the "confusion'' between megapixel and megabyte, really doesn't matter that much to the birthday shooter, they don't know the difference anyway. Higher megapixel means higher megabyte, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Jane Spaulding,

The more you have, the better the print, when you print in ultra large formats. Sorry, but the idea that you would see bad results while shooting at the lowest quality settings for typical 8x10 prints, is absolute felonious. Try it, you will see. If you have a good printer which still won't even touch the DPI of the actual photo, it will look great.

I was speaking specifically about the amateur camera users, which make up the market for DSLR's these days, they don't have a clue what the camera is actually capable of, and the size of the files/settings they use, are unjustified. There is no difference in quality under normal usage between a 24meg picture, and a 2meg picture.

Like I said, this was going to hurt some feelings, and I expected a lot of people crying about the post, but I always tell it the way it is, not the way people want it to be. 90% of the DSLR's are being way under used by people that have no clue about photography, they just want to impress their friends.

As painful as that may be, it still is the truth. I am very curious how many dot per square inch your printer is capable of, then if you actually know the DPI of the pictures you are taking. That would be fascinating to know. I bet dollar to donuts that your printer can't even cope with half of the resolution your pictures are stored in, unless you have a 5,000 dollar printer of course.

Anthony: a camera's 'auto setting', ISOs, focal lengths and exposures have nothing whatever to do with the composition of an image. And it's composition which cropping is all about, not whether an image is properly focused or lit.

Let's put it simply: if I crop one-third of a 24Mb image with an intended dimensional output size of A4, I finish up with a re-composed image that though now minus one third of its original visual content hasn't shrunk by one-third of its intended A4 size nor has it given up one third of its quality, either.

You seem to be saying that I (and anyone else) can achieve that task of cropping / re-composition just as well with the output of a 1 megapixel camera as with the output of a 40 megapixel camera. I'm sorry, but that patently isn't true.

David Bookbinder,

Well when I download an album of music, and it is smaller than the 10 photos of my puppy, I know that something is wrong. I don't know what the source of your older picture was, but again, there is a difference between what you get with a point and shoot early model digital camera, and a modern DSLR of todays standards. The lowest file size on these camera's would work just fine in 8x10. Most printers can't even touch the DPI that the image has anyway, since so many others have tried to use that as the reason for having huge files. Unless you spent 5k on your printer, the DPI is never going to come close to the DPI of the image itself.

Again, I am referring to Sally and Hunter, the BMW drivers that bought their top level DSLR because it makes them look great in their selfies and they can brag to their friends. They don't know what any of this means anyway, they just set the camera to auto, fire away, and hope that they get a few shots worthy of their profile picture on facebook. You know who I am talking about. Even the average "photo bug" still won't ever use or need the full potential of their camera. I know quite a bit about photography, and even I don't know half of what my camera's are capable of, just knew that I needed something that gave me more control than a standard point/shoot style. I needed something that gave me control of the focal length, focal point and ability to change from wide angle lens to super long lenses for racing.

I have shot anywhere from RAW to low, and the prints at 8x10 looked absolute no different. Anyone saying otherwise, is not be honest. If you need to make tarpaulin prints, then of course bigger is better, but that too depends on the printer creating the wall size picture. Beyond that, the DSLR's are stupidly excessive, and only get bigger to sell the latest and greatest to those who have to have the biggest/best camera out there.

Again, the sensor and the lens are much more crucial than the actual size of the picture being taken, that is just a fact. But it is ok, I don't mind if people are upset about my post, as I stated, I expected push back. Probably touched a nerve with a few people that got that 56megapixel camera and think they are taking NASA quality images that are award winning. Speaking of that, even the Hubble Space Telescope doesn't have a full megapixel sensor on it, yet we don't have a lot of complaints about that.

MikeR,

I always shoot to crop, I tell my wife, you can't add what you don't see. We crop all the time, and have no issue at all. If you have a quality 1mp camera, like the D1 form 20 years ago, it crops just fine. This is a circle argument anyway, I will never accept that you need all that data to print on A4 paper, I have been taking pictures for decades and never have had that problem. I don't use phone camera's to take my pictures that are important to me anyway. Even on the lowest setting my camera will allow, the prints come out just fine, even while cropped. Again, unless your image become lower than the DPI of the printer, you won't see any difference. You have to crop an awful lot to get that bad a result. Maybe you are taking such shots, but in the digital age, why be so stingy, take both wide and close pictures, that is also what I do. I have 32GB memory cards, and can literally shoot them for the next decade on low settings, and never have to change the card before it becomes full. Even in RAW, I can still take more than 1,000 photos. Who the hell takes a thousand photos of anything?

We are not going to agree, that is obvious. I don't know what kind of camera you use, and maybe you need better gear, but if you are basing what you buy on the gimmick of "megapixel" size, then you are exactly who they are targeting with their advertising. In the real world, it just does NOT make any difference. If you are a professional or semi-professional photographer, then obviously this does not apply to you. It is the average joe that I am taking aim at, so to speak. They don't have a clue, they just know that more/bigger means better. While it may be true in the extreme sense, to the average user, it makes ZERO difference.

Is there one in Win7?

McG,

Yes. I just right click on the file(s) of interest, and select "Resize pictures" from the menu.

To use in batch mode, just use the Shift and/or Ctrl keys to highlight multiple files before doing the right click.

You 'll get offered a choice of multiple levels of reduction.

Mike Henry, thanks for the reply, however, I had a look and that option is not in the menu. I'm running win7 pro 64bit. Any idea how/where I can find it? I checked the help and support but found nothing of the kind either.

McG,

It's in Power Toys. After you install it, then it appears automatically on your right-click menu for files.

Take a look at:
http://www.nirmaltv.com/2009/08/26/image-resizer-power-toy-for-windows-7/

I am using it on Win 7 pro 64-bit.

r verma,
Did you read the Read-Me file?

Terry E., yes i read it, i have got the activation key but there is no option to fill the key and activate it

Sam-Ottawa S,

Follow the instruction in the accompanying text file, my friend. When you input your email address the Registration Key is displayed on the page.

MikeR, I use Irfanview to fine tune (reduce via extra "compression") an image file size such that I am still satisfied with the resultant image quality. Can this tool or the Balesio tool do a better job, in your opinion, of quality/per compression ratio, or is it just a matter of UI steps convenience (and if so, what are those favorable UI steps)? Thanks.

Mark, I can't speak for Black Bird's current approach on this, so would suggest you download and try it for yourself. I can say though that both it and Balesio's app are less about 'compression' per se, more about removing from an image file, data whose loss won't adversely effect a viewer's perception of that image. (Balesio's website explains this in more detail.)

Balesio's app offers three different types of 'optimization', best described as minimal / medium / maximum. The user can also set her / his own parameters, too. Black Bird offers a similar approach, hence why I think it's a good GOTD today.

Obviously, the quality of an original photograph and the size of its image file has a direct bearing on how well these apps perform, but in my own case I've seen file size reductions of 60% without any perceptible reduction in perceived quality. Hope that helps!

adif, can you save compressed png files as png files with Irfan View?

I tried "File" > "Save for Web... (PlugIn)" but the output is jpg only.

Wayne , I never did it that way.
go to save as , and select PNG

Thanks, TK. I know how to save files.

What I don't know is how to optimize an image with Irfan View, size-wise.

tomcat,
Probably -- - - if you actually got it to WORK.
3 times installing and never would open.........wasted my time for naught.