Email is concerned with file size not image size or file type. There is no need to change the image size, i.e. pixel dimenisions.

The simpliest way is to use any photo editor, such as Windows Photo, Apple Photo or any other photo editor you may have. Open your jpg image and then immediately save (or export) it, but be sure to increase your file compression before exporting. Increasing your file compression will reduce your file size without reducing image size.

Increasing compression will degrade the image, but not to a degree that is noticeable to the viewer.

Annette and I stop by Magnolia Plantation and Gardens whenever we visit Charleston, South Carolina, which is one of our favorite vacation spots. Recently we took advantage of a long weekend to do just that.

Magnolia Plantation and Gardens is a historic house with gardens. It is one of the oldest plantations in the South and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Magnolia Plantation is located near Charleston and directly across the Ashley River from North Charleston. The house and gardens are open daily; an admission fee is charged, although Annette and I get free entrance through our affiliation with the American Horticultural Society’s Reciprocal Admissions Program.

The plantation dates to 1676, when Thomas and Ann Drayton (née Anna Fox) built a house and small formal garden on the site. Magnolia was originally a rice plantation, with extensive earthworks of dams and dikes built in fields along the river for irrigating land for rice cultivation.

Magnolia Plantation is operated as a house museum and tourist attraction. It has a reconstructed and restored plantation house, based on what was built after the Civil War. The oldest section was built prior to the Revolutionary War near Summerville. This structure was transported down the Ashley River after the Civil War and added to the house during its rebuilding.

Other elements of the plantation emphasize the natural setting: a nature train, a marsh boat tour, and a wildlife area. A petting zoo and the gardens feature a kind of cultivated nature. Many of today's attractions were built starting in 1975 during the garden's renewal.

These photos with Topaz and Dynamic Auto Painter Pro effects were taken in March. I shot in RAW with my Nikon D750 camera and used Corel AfterShot Pro to convert the files. Then I used Topaz Denoise, Corel PaintShop Pro, Luminar AI, and Exposure 6 to further adjust and enhance the files in post processing. Finally, I used the Topaz legacy plugin, Simplify, and Dynamic Auto Painter Pro to add the softening and painterly effects. I hope you enjoy!

We did an upcoming graduation photoshoot for a young lady this past Sunday. We have known Maya since a child. Her Mom is like a sister to my wife and I. Maya is like niece to us. What is exceptional about this family is that while her father [and my friend and brother] passed - at an early age - when she was a child, we experienced seeing how her Mom and her sister and her, maintained whatever it takes to have the intestinal fortitude to make it through. They did so by first loving God, and then being absolutely wonderful human beings to have in your extended family [as well as just to be around].

Icing on the cake was when Maya chose to attend college where I did my undergrad - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Nothing but blue skies for baby girl as she continues on this path less traveled.

Nothing could be finer...
There Goes a Tar Heel

Sony a9
Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 ART
GODOX Strobe

So.... I don't do much photography during the winter months because foliage is dormant and everything seems so monotone and absent of color and life. Of course snow is different but we have had none where I live so far this year. Anyway yesterday I had to drive into Highlands for an errand and took a dirt road home that I knew would take me to the "Iron Bridge" deep in the Forestry Service land which spans over the Chattooga river which winds along the Georgia, South and North Carolina borders. The cascades in the second image flow under the bridge.

I came home with these. The last image is from last year and is the final edit that made the wall.