Thursday, December 11, 2008

Do more with e‑mailed photos using Windows Live Mail

Do more with e‑mailed photos using Windows Live Mail

Sending
photos from Windows Photo Gallery works just fine, but it sends the
photos as attachments that the recipient must click individually to
open, which makes it tough to browse the photos all at once.

Picture of a photo attachment in an e‑mail message
Photo attached to an e‑mail message

To
present resized photos in the message, you can use a feature in
Windows Live Mail called Photo e‑mail. You can download
Windows Live Mail for free online at the Microsoft website for Windows Live.

Picture of a Photo e‑mail in Windows Live Mail
Send a Photo e‑mail using Windows Live Mail

You
can quickly send e‑mails of photos in a variety of size and layout
styles with Photo e‑mail. You can autocorrect and rotate photos; add
effects, such as borders; add captions; and include any text in the
e‑mail that you want to send.

If you create a Photo e‑mail while
signed in to Windows Live Mail using a Windows Live ID,
there's an added bonus: the option for recipients to view the photos as
a slide show hosted by the Windows Live Spaces website. The people
you send e‑mail to can view larger versions of the photos if they want
to, and they can also download the larger versions at their
leisure—all without them having to enter any user name or
password to view the pictures. Plus, there’s no uploading or
managing by you—you get the benefit of posting photos online to a
website without any of the fuss.

If you already have a
MSN Hotmail, MSN Messenger, or Microsoft Passport
account, you've already got a Windows Live account. You can go
online to sign in now with your current account information to start
using Windows Live. If you don't have a Windows Live ID, you
can get one online at the Microsoft website for Windows Live.


To use Photo e‑mail


1.

Open Windows Live Mail.

2.

Click the arrow next to the New button, and then click Photo e‑mail.

3.

In the Add Photos
dialog, browse to the folder containing the photos you want to include,
click the picture that you want to send in e‑mail, and then click Add. To select more than one item, hold down the CTRL key while you click the items that you want to select.

4.

Keep adding photos until you are done, and then click Done.

5.

On the toolbar, click Layout,
and then choose how you want the e‑mail message to look and how large
you want the images in the message to be. The larger the images, the
larger the file will be.

Picture of the photo layout option in Windows Live Mail
Configure the layout of the Photo e‑mail message
6.

If you create a Photo e‑mail while signed in to Windows Live Mail using a Windows Live ID, on the toolbar, click Photos. Choose the resolution of the photos that are uploaded to the Windows Live Spaces website when you click Send.
The resolution you choose determines the quality of the photos when
viewed as a slide show, but it doesn’t affect the size of the
e‑mail message itself. For example, you can send small thumbnails in
the e‑mail, but upload large versions that people can view (and
download) if they want to.

Picture showing upload options in Windows Live Mail
Choose the resolution of the uploaded images
7.

Enter
the e‑mail addresses of the recipients, type a subject, and write a
brief message. When you have finished composing the e mail message,
click Send.

Viewing a slide show

When
your friends and family receive your Photo e‑mail, they’ll see
the photos in the layout and size that you chose. That alone is great,
but if you created the Photo e‑mail while signed in to
Windows Live Mail using a Windows Live ID, they can also view
the photos presented as a slide show, and then download larger versions
of the images if they choose to do so.

Picture showing a slide show link in a Photo e‑mail message
Play a slide show from the Photo e‑mail message

When they click Play slideshow,
a Windows Live Spaces website opens up that displays the images in
sequential order. The recipient can vary the speed at which the photos
display, download the larger picture from the website, and view
larger-resolution versions of the file.

Picture of the slide show controls
Change the viewing speed or download a higher-resolution picture

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