FTP and Image Manipulation Software

ECommerce Articles | January 31, 2012

An image manipulation programme and an FTP client are just two of the tools you can download free from the internet and use to make your website look more proffessional.

When things on the computer look a bit difficult I usually give up.

My mind doesn't work that way. Programs like FTP Clients and Image Manipulation look horribly complicated when you open the box, but believe me; though they are big with dozens of functions they're really very simple.

Just use the bits you need and leave the rest for some other day.

Just to prove the point I'm going to trim a picture and upload it onto my site. As we often focus on free open source software I'm going to use 'GIMP' as my Image Manipulation Software and 'Filezilla' as my FTP client. If you are using other software the processes will be similar, and if your software is commercial you won't have to bother with downloading!

Downloading from the Net.

Let's focus on GIMP, the procedure for Filezilla is similar but with the obvious differences.

1. Start up your computer and make a Google Search for 'Sourceforge' - a consistently reliable source of downloads.

2. In Sourceforge either search directly for GIMP or for Image Manipulation and scroll down to GIMP

3. Click on 'Download' and then on 'Run'. There will be some security checks dependent on your particular security system and the Download and Setup wizards will run automatically.

Make appropriate responses to the prompts. When the process is finished - and there can be time for a cup of tea as they progress - you will find a new Icon on your desktop. Click on it and GIMP will start.

Image Manipulation.

We are going to perform two operations:

1. Trimming out clutter in your picture to get to its essence and

2. Sizing it to fit the norms on your site - on mine virtually all are 180px wide to fit in a sidebar.

When you open GIMP for the first time it will take a moment or two to boot up then two floating panels will open up: a short, wide panel labelled GNU Image Manipulation Program, and a tall, thin panel. Ignore the tall thin one for the time being.

On the other panel click on 'file' and then on 'open'- ignore all other options!

A third panel will open showing you the file structure of your computer; find the picture you want to process and click on it. The panel showing your files will close and your picture will appear in the GIMP panel.

Now move over to the tall, thin panel and click on the rectangle icon at the top/right. Now back to your picture and use the little cross-hairs to draw a rectangle around the bet you want to keep.

Now click on 'Image' and then 'crop to selection and 'voila' you're the irrelevant bits of your picture are gone!

Now click on 'File' and 'Save As' and save your work under a new name.

Uploading to your Site

In another article we have shown how to download and setup Filezilla. When you've done that click on 'Server' and 'Reconnect' and you will see your local files on the left and your internet files on the right.

Use your cursor to find your picture in your local computer, then move over to the internet side to find your 'Images' or 'Pictures file and open that. Right click on your picture and select 'upload' and there - you've done it.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Roger Webb is a retired CEO from Small and Medium Sized (SME) companies in the UK and Continental Europe. In thirty years experience at life at the top he has been instrumental in turning around and setting up a number of specialist subsidiaries in Europe, Africa and beyond, in every case producing stable profits in some of the most testing corporate environments imaginable.

In retirement he has devoted most of his energies in developing a group of wiki sites devoted to helping others to set up eBusinesses. His current sites http://Computer-Virgin.nethttp://computer-virgin.net">http://Computer-Virgin.net> for new-starters and http://mywebtrade.nethttp://mywebtrade.net">http://mywebtrade.net> for those further along the trail are just part of those efforts.