How do I get my photos so large?

I have had a lot of people email and ask me how I was able to get my photos on this blog so large. I'll admit that I am thrilled to be asked questions that I am able to share the answer to.

Because so many are interested in enlarging their own photos, I've taken a few minutes to type this up for you. I hope that you can find it useful.

Blogger Layout: Before you can actually use enlarged photos on your blog, you will have to change your layout to the stretch format. You can do this easily, without losing any of your information.

Go to your dashboard and click on the "layouts" button. Then you will be on the "add and arrange page elements" screen. Once there, look up to the top at the right of the labels and you'll see "pick new template". Click on that. This will show you a whole new world of layouts for your blog. The one that you want is the "Minima Stretch". It is in the first box of the second row and is the second one down. (You can also use the lefty stretch, if you like the looks.)

Picasa Web Album:

Did you realize that when you upload photos through "create" posts, that all of your photos are stored into an online album through Picasa? Yup. I have found out that it takes less time to upload my photos into Picasa, first, than it does to wait for blogger to load them into my post. Either way you upload, you can still change the size but it will have to be done by retrieving the code in Picasa. When you go into Picasa, to the right of your photo it will show "Link to this photo"; choose "embed image" and underneath, there is a little box to choose the size that you want. After that, just copy/paste that code into the "Edit Html" box next to the "Compose" box in the "create" blogger posting page.

It's really pretty simple, especially once you've done it for the first time. If you have any trouble, you can send me an email and I'll get back to you soon.