I use Corel Photo-Paint. That way, you can change the size, colour depth, resolution, etc. whereas some programs will only change the size.

Also, it helps if you have a program that can convert an image to JPEG or TIF because those file types use compression. (TIF is best because there is no information loss). Just converting to TIF can make a 1.16 MB image only about 40 KB.

Try GIMP, its free and very good and simple.

Check out http://www.orangefrogproductions.com/ofp2m_faq_images.shtml for instructions using Windows Photo Editor, that comes with Windows.

I just use Microsoft Ofice Picture Manager. It's probably on your computer already.

I have 2 fav. graphic software:
1)Paint Shop Photo Album 5,
2)Nero Photo Show Deluxe.

They are not free though.

I use Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, but remember when you change an image you lose information so always work from a copy, that way the original stays intact if you need it again.

Easiest way for XP/Vista users to resize is a feature in Microsoft powertoys, a free download from Microsoft so that you don't have to go another site risking spyware or other problems, after downloading it's a simple right click on any picture in your files to resize in seconds...It's really good/safe and easy to use...

I use hp photo and imaging. I think it came with my printer. I also have arcsoft photo impression that lets me edit photos in a lot of ways. It came with a camera I have.

Open up in a image editing program, like microsoft paint or any other image editing
program and resize and make the size smaller.

http://www.carleton.edu/campus/ITS/staff/sfox/shrink.html

http://graphicssoft.about.com/.../howreducesize.htm

http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa

http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/.../image-file-size.php

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~esrabkin/LowerImageSize.htm

http://www.exefind.com/change-the-file-size-of-image/

http://www.brothersoft.com/.../...ge-file-size.html

http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/changesize.html

- - - - [Here is an EXCERPT from the website for you] - - - -

This is a brief introduction to some of the concepts and technical details of reducing the size of image files so that they can be imported into PowerPoint without creating a 40Megbyte monstrosity.
Why Squeeze Files?

Graphics files captured using NIH-Image, or scanned using Photoshop can easily grow to upward of 10Megbytes in size. If you have a PowerPoint presentation with 10 such images your PowerPoint file will be over 100Megs. Since the entire presentation must be loaded into the computer's memory (which is rarely larger than 24Megs and must hold the operating system, and PowerPoint as well as your presentation) one finds that it's fairly straight-forward to create a presentation that either takes a very long time to load, or won't run at all. The solution to this problem is to squeeze each image down in size so that the images in your presentation are each as small as possible. Note that once the images are in PowerPoint it's too late to shrink them. Some forethought is required.
So How Big Should They Be?

First a quick reminder about file sizes on computers. File size is measure in bytes (a collection of 8 binary digits). The two most common metrics are kilobytes "k's" or kB (thousands of bytes) and megabytes "Megs" or MB (millions of bytes). Files range in size from a few kB for small text files to several MB for programs (like PowerPoint)...