Need Help Resizing in PS Elements 6

Question

I recently worked on a couple of my photos in PS Elements 6, and after I saved them, I found that they had changed size drastically.  Both were about 2MB originally, but after working on them one had gone down to a mere 190Kb, while the other had increased all the way up to a whopping 40.5MB--so big that I cannot even email it, since it is almost double the maximum 25MB for one email.  I tried "Resize" under "Image", but that appears to only change the dimensions in inches--there is no way to revert back to the original 2MB.  I am new to Photoshop, indeed to computers, so any help would be appreciated.  Thanks.

Answer 1

You are confusing the size of the file that contains your photograph, with the size (number of megapixels) of your photograph.
These two things are not the same, and sometimes do not move together.
Futhermore, there is no need (and no way) to re-szie your photograph back to 2MB. All of your photograph information is in the file, even though it is 190K now. When you save a .jpg, it very often will get smaller, because .jpg uses compression. You do need to be aware of the quality level that you are saving the file at ... in PSE, you can save it from a quality of 1 (poor quality, very small files) to a quality of 12 (high quality, large files). A lot of people (like me) choose a compromise of around 8 or 9, as the quality degradation from one save at quality 8 or 9 usually isn't noticeable unless you blow up the photo very large. The choice is up to you.
Your 40.5MB photograph is huge because you probably saved it as .psd or .tif. If you resave it as .jpg, the size will shrink to something much smaller, which you can e-mail.