How can you reduce the size of your digital pictures? My files are too large & they take forever to download!

I own a Nikon Coolpix 7600. It has 7.1 megapixels (I can't stand the camera!!!!!)

Don't blame the camera.

It is supposed to make large files so you can make nice large prints in high detail. It is one of the reasons people buy cameras with high pixel counts.

If you want to have smaller images then go into the cameras menu and make the resolution lower and the size smaller. You will still have to re-size them for use on the Internet or as attachments to email though. At that point you are not saving any time.

Shoot at high resolution and then batch re-size the images, saving them to a new folder and be done with it. Yes you will have to learn how to do that, but in the end it will save you time and you will still have files that will make some awesome prints.

Set the dial to 'Auto' and press 'Menu' butten in the camera and a setting page opens in the LCD. The first row is 'Image mode' and select it and choose image resolution from 7M* to PC. Report It

go to "settings" on your camera and set it to a smaller pixel size

there is a file that is freeware called Irfanview that will let you edit and crop jpegs and gifs. Do a google serch for the file.It is one of the best picture viewers and its a small program. Reduce your resulition on you camera try 1024X768.

you can go into settings of your camera and change the pixels size of your pictures that your camera takes.Refer to your manual for directions on how to do this.
If you don't have a manual go to Nikon's website and they should have one.
Also, you can download a picture editing software like IrfanView and it has resizing options.
Or you can google free picture editing software.

any photo program can reduce the size.
you can set your camera to take smaller pictures.
I downloaded a resizer from microsoft xp powertoys
you just right click on the pictures and make them smaller.

before you take photos, you can goto the settings in your digital camera, set it lower resolutions to like 1600x1200 or smaller.

for the pictures you've already taken, if you don't have any special photo softwares to resize the pictures, you can open it with paint. goto image, and stretch/skew, you can reduce the pictures to what ever percentage of the 100 % you like, make sure both numbers on horizontal & vertical are the same like 50 & 50.

you can also upload them to these photograph sites which automatically resizes for you (free to sign up), or give you an option what size you want to upload it to their site.
www.photobucket.com
www.shutterfly.com

In addition to shooting at a lower resolution, you might also want to check if you have set the camera to RAW or TIFF mode, which will retain all the information and does take forever to download. You should be able to store to card in JPEG or another compressed format. You might have various levels of image quality. On my camera, Super High Quality (SHQ) is about 25-30% of a TIFF image, and High Quality even smaller.