MailMyPics Quick Start Manual
Discover by yourself most of MailMyPics features by browsing menus and tool bars.
Send by e-mail your images and pictures without taking care of size troubles. From the start to the end, MailMyPics handles everything without visible changes of your pictures!
How does it make it?
Ø Pictures are compressed using an encoding format known from all computers, without reducing them like thumbnails, so there are no visible changes on screen.
Ø Resulting pictures are dispatched on more than one mail if required.
Ø It prepares the e-mail message to be sent calling your usual mail client application.
The benefits are:
ü Reduction of servers rejects because of too large mail messages.
ü Greatly increased number of pictures sent in a single message (usually from 3 to 5 times).
ü Reduction of sending and reception transmission time.
ü Save time required to prepare the mail message.
ü Save disk space consumed by mail messages.
MailMyPics main
advantage, instead of most tools that help sending pictures by mail, is that
the low compression level of camera is increased then, only if required, number
of pixels is reduced. That way, your pictures have a full screen size and top
quality even on large monitors.
An alternate feature allows picture compression for some others usage than mail sending.
These are the available methods:
· Drag pictures files from file explorer and drop them on MailMyPics icon that launches and display them in the selection list.
· Drag pictures files from file explorer and drop them on MailMyPics pictures selection list area.
· Select pictures files from file explorer, copy them to the clipboard. Then, use paste command to add them in the selection list.
· Select “Add” command that will open the file explorer to select the files to be added in the selection list.
These methods can be used as many times as required, the list will grow up and detect if some pictures are selected more than once by displaying a warning message.
It is also possible to remove pictures from the selection list by selecting them and selecting the “Remove” command.
Select “Send” command, then a dialog box displays the number of mails and the size required to send the full selection list of pictures.
Select “Continue”, your default mail messaging application starts and displays a mail message to be sent including the pictures as attached files. Enter the recipient(s), change the mail objet and body if required, and send it. It’s finished!
It is possible to save your compressed pictures to a target directory instead of sending them by mail.
The method is strictly identical to the one used for mail sending.
Select “Export” command, and then choose a target directory using the “Browse” button. Click on “Export” to proceed.
ü JPEG (JPG)
ü Portable Network Graphic (PNG)
ü Graphic Interchange Format (GIF)
ü Bitmap (BMP)
ü Tagged Image Format (TIF)
ü Windows Meta File (WMF)
ü Enhanced Windows Meta File (EMF)
ü Icon (ICO)
Very small or compressed pictures may be left unchanged by MailMyPics.
When installed, MailMyPics register to the file explorer a new type of file having
the extension « .mmpsel ».
This file format permits to load or save a selection of pictures allowing you, for
example, to load the same set of pictures later, so you can send them again.
A pictures selection is simply a list of short cuts to real pictures file in your folders. This results in a very small file but MailMyPics won’t be able to find the picture if you have moved or renamed it.
Pictures selection can be handled as picture files by MailMyPics, thus, can also be dragged and dropped over the image list area. You can either double click on a picture selection file; MailMyPics will start listing the pictures declared in the selection file.
When you quit the application, by default, a message is displayed letting you save the current pictures list in a selection. If you don’t want this question displayed, uncheck the menu item “File/Ask for selection saving”.
This list will display columns in the following order:
· A thumbnail of the original picture.
· The name of the picture file.
· The original picture size (width x height) in Mega pixels.
· The byte volume before compression.
· The date of the picture files last change (or the snapshot time stamp).
· The compressed picture size (width x height) in Mega pixels.
· The byte volume after compression.
· The quality (compression factor) used (from 10% for bad to 90% for excellent quality).
· The original picture format (shown by file extension).
· The folder where the picture file is located.
It is possible to sort columns by clicking on its header. The right mouse button will open a popup menu over the selected picture while the double click will display the original in your default picture application.
This panel is located at the right side of the application. It allows comparing the original picture and the compressed one, the last will be sent by mail. It is possible to hide this panel if more free space is required. This panel itself is build on two areas, the top one contains the original picture, the bottom one the compressed picture. That way, it is possible to adjust the compression options if, the quality or the reduction factors are not those expected.
Top panel can be hidden by unselecting the “Compare” switch.
The “Adjust” check button displays the full picture in the available area. Otherwise, the picture will be displayed at a 100% zoom factor. In that case, the compressed picture may be displayed at smaller size if compression algorithm reduced the number of pixels.
If adjustment is not activated, it is possible to scroll the picture by using the mouse and scroll bars as well as dragging it using the left mouse button. This allows analyzing sharply a specific area of original and compressed pictures.
Double clicking on the original or compressed picture will open it using the default picture application configured on your computer.
This dialog box lets you set up the behavior of the compression algorithm. By default, everything is set up for common mail usage over a DSL basic rate connection.
You should keep in mind that today, a mail should not exceed the 4 Mb (4096 Kb). Otherwise, it may be rejected by messaging servers or by administrators. The second parameter to take in account is the transmission time for receiving the mail but also for sending it. Default speed rates should match most of common cases.
The most efficient is to setup those parameters before adding pictures in the list because, when validating compression algorithm would be launched again to take in account your changes.
Select the speed rate that is the closest to your Internet connection speed for sending and your recipient slowest Internet connection speed for usual mail transmission. The first number is the download speed from the Internet, the second the upload speed from your computer to the Internet.
When these settings are changed, recommended advanced settings will be initialized automatically.
It is possible, while not recommended, to force sending of picture on a single mail. This is a strong constraint if you wish to send many pictures. This may result in a very high compression resulting in a low quality and a small picture in pixels. Moreover, in that case, the application will run again the compression algorithm each time a picture is added or removed from the list. This may become unacceptable on a slow computer.
If you are easy with these settings, it is possible to change them manually for specific needs.
No reduction or compression will be done. The only advantage in that case will be to send pictures at the top original quality, splitting them on multiple mail messages if required.
That value (in Mega bytes) should not be too large. It is more reasonable to split the sending over multiple and smaller mail messages. Today, 5 Mb should be the maximum value.
That value (in Kilo bytes) should not be to small since resulting quality may be bad.
It is recommended to let the application chose the best size (automatic). Otherwise, choose the widest side of the picture in pixels.
You should let the application chose the best compression factor (automatic). Otherwise, chose a factor in %. JPEG compression factor is a value that modifies the amount of effective data required to encode color and brightness of the picture. High range cameras usually encode using 90% or more while you may see differences on the screen below 50%.
This application is optimized for photographic pictures. Many picture formats are accepted but results may be disappointing when compressing high contrast items, like text, schema or drawing. Result may be bad with very small or already highly compressed pictures. This would be the same if too high constraints are set up in picture compression options.
It is possible to open the original or compressed picture from the application interface. If picture is changed and saved, you will meet the following behavior.
The application does not check for external changes of original picture. In order to make sure your changes are taken in account, remove then add again the edited picture from the picture list. An alternate solution would be to open the option dialog box, and validate without any modification, resulting in a rerun of the compression algorithm for all pictures.
In that case, there is no risk to lose any change in the original picture, but you may send a compressed copy of your picture before your changes.
The application does not check for external changes of the compressed picture. Changes will be kept only of compression algorithm is not launched again before mail sending. This is not a recommended usage since you may definitely lose your changes or believe that changes are taken in account in target mail. Keep in mind that compressed pictures are stored as temporary files and removed when closing the application.
In order to understand the concept, you should know how a computer handles pictures. A picture is a collection of square points called pixels, organized as horizontal rows and vertical columns. Those pixels are contiguous and represent a rectangular or square surface. We call them picture with X pixels on width and Y pixels on height. In camera context we talk about mega pixels (means million pixels) that simply represents the previous X multiplied by Y.
As an example, a camera shooting pictures of 1600 pixel by 1200 pixels = 1 920 000 pixels, we say 1,9 mega pixels. This example is a small amount of pixels for nowadays cameras; it is more common on phones with mini camera inside.
Then, you should know that each pixel as a defined color. Usually, in our context, color is coded as 3 components (red, green, blue); each one sampled over 256 levels. This represents 16,7 millions distinct colors. As a consequence, we need 3 bytes per pixel, that means for our sample 3 * 1600 * 1200 = 5 760 000 bytes or about 5,5 Mb. This is the required storage space to handle our “small” picture!
However, if you look a the picture file size on your hard disk, you may notice that pictures are much smaller, about 1 Mb when your camera is a 6 mega pixel. This is because of to the file format used to save the picture. There are many formats, some of them use compression algorithm to optimize storage space. Each format has advantages and disadvantages. One of the most efficient formats for photos is called JPEG (file extension is .jpg). This is a complex calculation that reduces the amount of required bytes to describe the image trying to hide compression artifacts to human eye. This is the format used by MailMyPics to compress your pictures;
This format is optimized for photos but not so good, sometimes very bad for drawing, technical documents or text (like faxes). MailMyPics accepts most common picture formats but you may notice a quality loose on some pictures if these are not taken by cameras.
Thanks to this parametric format, MailMyPics can choose a compression ratio and the number of pixels keeping as goal, file size reduction but as less as possible pixels reduction (the common default of most picture compression tools). Take care that resolution and number of pixels mean different things. The resolution is the number of pixels divided by a distance (usually dots per inch DPI). MailMyPics never modifies the resolution.
Because cameras use a very low compression ratio, in order to optimize picture quality at a level much higher than the one required to be displayed on a screen or printed in a small size, MailMyPics increases this ratio in a way that you can’t notice any change on the screen but saves many precious bytes.
The application has been checked on the following operating systems:
ü Windows 2000.
ü Windows 2003, 32 bits and 64 bits.
ü Windows XP, 32 and 64 bits.
ü Windows Vista, 32 and 64 bits.
Launch the setup program and follow the indications. You need to run the setup as an administrator but you may use it as a simple user. In order to install the application, go to the common Add/Remove application menu in Windows.
MailMyPics is optimized for Windows Vista. However it may run on oldest Windows like Winows 98 but this has not been controlled.
This application is compliant with Windows best practices and security rules. You do not need to be an administrator even on Windows VISTA. User switching is supported, registry is never used, no file is installed in system directories.
This is a .NET application that uses Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. If your computer has not this component installed, the setup program will invite you to install it by downloading it from Microsoft servers.
This application runs as 32 bits application in order to communicate with common messaging application like Microsoft Office. You may get the 64 bits version of MailMyPics if you messaging application were a 64 bits SMAPI compliant application.
This application has been tested with common messaging application, from Microsoft or not. It should be compatible with any SMAPI compliant messaging system.
Any configuration that runs Windows should be sufficient. Processing speed will depends on your computer performance.
By default, this application runs in evaluation mode. In this mode, all features are available but when sending the mail or exporting the compressed pictures, a wait delay is added as a progress bar. This wait will increase with time.
If don’t want this delay, please register your product from the menu “Help / Register” by following the instructions.