What's in here:
1. Let's get your image on your computer - scanning.
2. Resize it.
3. E-mail.

I don't know what kind of operation system (OS) you're using, but actually the advice, I'm going to give you can be used in any graphics packet, on any OS. I'm going to tell you the very basics, so don't judge too much, if you already know some about graphics. The thing is that hundreds of people ask me this very question all the time: "How do I make my photo smaller, so that I could e-mail it to you?" and I have to explain everything all over and over again. That's why I decided to write this article, and I hope, it will be useful for you. So, let's start.

Scanning

I assume that you already have a scanner mounted to your computer and its software installed. Launch your graphics program. It may be any program you like, I personally use a well known graphics packet called "Adobe Photoshop" for Windows, but you may use any program. Even if you've never installed any particular graphics program, your OS may have some built-in program that will work with images. So, you've already launched your program. Here's how it works in Photoshop:
1. Choose: File => Select Source (or Import) and the select dialog box appears, choose your scanner and click "select".
2. You may have a different scanner from mine, but still what you see next is your scanner's invitation - click on the picture below to see a larger screenshot.



3. Put your image into the scanner and press "Preview". You should see a small preview image.
4. Now you should select your "work" area, i. e. select the area you want to scan. If it's an image of yourself, you probably won't wish to scan a great deal of useless background, will you? ;) So, select your figure/face in the picture, leaving as less background as possible - click on the picture below to see what I mean.

Note: Resolution - determines the amount of detail collected from your original. The higher the resolution, the more detail. In general, I recommend you to keep the resolution as low as possible, because the higher resolution, the slower you scan and the larger the resulting file size. Resolution is measured in pixels.
At the present stage you don't need any further explanation on pixels, the only thing you should notice is that the quality of your image will depend on the quantity of pixels in it.

5. In your scanning window find the item "Resolution" and set its value: I. If you are rather small in your picture - set 100 pixels; II. If you are having a studio quality picture, you're quite large in it - set 75 - 90 pixels.
6. Now everything is ready and you can press the "Scan" button.
7. What you probably see now is your scanned image imported into your photo-editing program. Here you can enhance your image, if necessary, make it lighter (adjust brightness/contrast), change colors (color balance) and etc. depending on your picture.
8. If you're satisfied with what you see, choose File => Save as, a dialog box appears. Type your image's name in it and select the image format to save your picture in. It should be JPG (or JPEG). It will keep the smallest file size and will make the best of your photo. Save it with a medium quality (in Photoshop choose level 3 - it will be enough).
So, here's what we needed, a photo in JPEG format.

Note: You can use other programs like "Web Graphics Optimizer" to optimize your picture. A nice program, good compression engine, you'll be able to see different variations of your picture depending on the compression ratio. For Win, WinNT.
Also in case you have some additional questions. Unfortunately, I won't be able to answer you via e-mail, so here's one more advice: it may seem frightening to some people, but still you should read the manuals installed along with your graphics program :)) (F1), besides do spare some time on experiments (try different quality levels, for example), it'll do you good.

Resize it.

Let's imagine that the photo, you've scanned is too large, it undoubtedly exceeds 30 kilobytes, for example. Here's what we can do about it.
To find out the size of your image, select Image => Image Size from the Photoshop menu bar ("Resize" in other programs) - click on the picture below.

This dialog box gives you the width, height and resolution of your image. See that checkbox next to the word Proportions? (Note: in Photoshop 4 and 5, this checkbox is labeld Constrain Proportions.) Don't uncheck that checkbox! I guarantee that your image will be squished if you do.
If you don't believe me, let's uncheck that Proportions checkbox and resize this picture. The size of this image is 177 pixels high by 216 pixels wide. Now its height was changed to 100 pixels. Here's the result:

Use Ctrl+Z to undo the damage, and select Image => Image Size again. Leave the Proportions checkbox checked. You change only one dimension, height or width, (I changed height to 100). Photoshop will then do the math for you and figure out how big the other dimension needs to be in order to retain the correct proportions for your image.

E-mail

At last, you've got the picture, it doesn't exceed 30 kb, actually, it should be about 15 - 20 kb. Nice. Now you need to e-mail it. Remember, when you send a picture via e-mail, your mailing program adds up some additional kilobytes to your message. It's about 20-30% from your picture's size. Remember about this feature, please, it's very important. Now attach the photo to your message and send it.

Note: If you don't know where to look up your image's size: launch your files manager, get into the folder, where you stored your image, press Ctrl and + (the "plus" on the right side of your keyboard). You will see the columns telling your files' sizes, type and the date they were created/changed.