Making usable pics with scanner

I got a new scanner for Xmas.
I got it installed fine.
I scanned my first picture, the cover of my alumni magazine (it was handy ;-)). It came out to 9.75MB (at 300dpi). in jpg format.

Kinda unusable for passing pix around, even on broadband.

Now, this is the first time I've ever used a PC scanner, so all I did was push the 'start' key, and got a full scan of the cover, which is a standard-sized magazine.
How do I reduce that down to something more usable?
Most pix I see attached to web pages or mail msgs are at most a coupla hundred KB.

What I'm looking for is an app to manipulate the pix down to a reasonable size, changing the resolution and perhaps the aspect ratio; nothing fancy, no morphing or even color manipulation. PhotoShop would be massive overkill, I think.
I looked in the files section, I must be using the wrong keywords.

I DO have IrfanView, but I've only used that for simple crops and format changes (BMPs to JPGs, for instance)

I've also seen some web sites that have a photo montage interface, where you are presented with thumbnail pix in an array, and can click to see teh full scale pix, but that's way in the future.

Any suggestions for S/W (preferably free/shareware)?

 

one thing you can do is change the dpi settings to 100 dpi

try saving the file under a different format
like png
Make sure that the file extension says jpeg
it just sounds like a lot of MB for a picture.

 

get a image editing program like photoshop or paint shop pro to reduce the resolution down to 72 DPI (screen resolution) and reduce the image size (somthing less than 1000 pixels is usually good)

Ok sorry didnt read ur post fully that time.
Jasc Paint shop pro is shareware, and cheap at that

 

I'm assuming you're looking for quick, easy and free?
http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/3000-2192-9607959.html?tag=lst-0-10
this could be worth a shot
Photo Resizer 1.0 popular

Download Now
Free download 962K
More download links

Downloads: 6,849
Publisher: Show Your Photos
Date added: April 3, 2002
File size: 962K; Clock this download
License: Free
Minimum requirements: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP
Uninstaller included?: Yes





Publisher's Description
Resize any LARGE photo, then e-mail it, or Save As in any format, or upload to a Web page. For digital camera owners, Web masters, or anybody who quickly wants to resize a photo for e-mail or publishing on a Web site. No need to open a photo editor or e-mail-client. Open the photo in PhotoResizer, resize it and e-mail it to a friend, colleague, or your office. And it also takes the addresses from your e-mail-client's address book.

 

Hello....
Here us an Awesome...Free Program....VCW VicMans Photo Editor
Just tons of stuff on it....and it will do what you want it to and also takes
the pic from your scanner.....upgrades are free....tons of filters....paint/draw
the whole 10 Yards! Here is the site: www.vicman.net

Have fun with it....

 

fyi, the average dpi is 72 .

 

>this could be worth a shot
Photo Resizer 1.0 popular

THANKS!

That seems to do the job.
Reduced the 9.75MB full page scan at 24bits down to 611KB.
(Not that I'd use something that big, I'm still just playing around ;-).
I got some other 4x5 snapshots down from ~600K to ~30K,
I reduced both the scan size (down from the original default for a 6.8x11 page of about 1100x1400) to 300x400, plus reduced the color planes down from 24bit (no wonder the original was so big.

Thanks to everyone who rec'ed S/W. I''ll look at them this week, I'm more or less off until next monday.

A few notes;
Saving in PNG vs JPG format actually INCREASED file size marginally.
Scanning at 600DPI takes FOREVER! (and it'll do 1200, but that might be interpolated, haven't got that far yet).
IrfanView has a lot more capabilities than I'd used in the past, not what I wanted, but it'll do more than just crops and format changes. I found out, f'rinstance, that it'll play music. More exploration to be done there.

Thanks to all for the recomendations, they'll keep me busy this week.

 

>Here us an Awesome...Free Program....VCW VicMans Photo Editor
Just tons of stuff on it....and it will do what you want it to and also takes
the pic from your scanner.....upgrades are free....tons of filters....paint/draw
the whole 10 Yards! Here is the site: www.vicman.net


Another winner!
It's limited to 1k pixels in size in the freeware version, and has some nags to it, but it's another useful product.
I haven't done the direct-from-scanner bit yet, just manipulated the previous scans, but it's another good piece of S/W.

Thanks to the people who did the recommendations, you're what makes MG suchj a worthwhile place to visit.