Prepare a picture for Lync 2010

With Microsoft Lync 2010 communications software you can change the picture that other people see of you in their Contacts list and in IM conversations.

 Note    To change your picture you must have a personal picture on a public picture site, such as the Windows Live network of Internet services, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Flickr.

What do you want to do?

Determine the size of your picture

To determine the size of a picture, follow these steps.

  1. Go to the website that has the picture you want to use.
  2. You can determine the size of most pictures by right-clicking the picture, and then clicking Properties.
  3. If there is no Properties selection when you do Step 2, click Save Picture As, and then right-click Properties on the picture that is now saved on your computer.
  4. By default, the maximum allowed size of a picture in Lync 2010 is 30 KB. Depending on the size of your picture, do one of the following:
  • If the picture is bigger than 30 KB, you’ll need to resize and snip it down to size before proceeding. See the following section about how to reduce the picture size.
  • If the picture is smaller than or equal to 30 KB, you can go directly to Get the address to paste into Lync 2010 in this topic.

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Reduce the picture size if it is too big

If you don’t have a personalized picture that is less than 30 KB, you can create one as follows:

  1. Go to the website that has the picture that you want to use, and right-click Save As. Or, open the picture from your hard disk.
  2. The picture must have an acceptable working area, which is approximately 1 to 1.5 inches square. To achieve this, right-click the picture, and then click Open with, select a program (Windows Photo Viewer is good). Drag the corners until you have the required size (that is, 1 to 1.5 inches square for the area you want to use, which is typically only your face).
  3. Now you need to snip out only the area of the picture you want. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, and then click Snipping Tool.
  4. In the Snipping Tool, click New, and then click Rectangular Snip.
  5. Using the Snipping Tool, select the area that you want to include in the picture (typically only your face), click File, and then click Save As. Make sure to select JPG as the file type.
  6. Save the file to a location on your computer, such as My Pictures.
  7. Check the size of the newly saved picture to make sure that it’s less than 30 KB. If it is larger than 30 KB, either be sure that your picture on screen is smaller or snip a smaller portion of the picture.

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Upload the picture

When you have a picture that is the correct size by doing the preceding procedure, upload it as follows.

  1. Go to your existing picture site, such as Windows Live, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Flickr.
  2. Create a new picture folder (album).
  3. Upload the picture from your computer into this album.

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Get the address to paste into Lync 2010

You now need to get the address of the online picture location, so that you can paste it into the My Pictures option in Lync 2010.

  1. Go to your existing picture site, and navigate to the folder where the picture you want to use is located. If it’s not there yet, see the previous section about uploading a picture. Do not use the address at the top of the page because it will not be correct.
  2. Make sure that the album is publicly available by selecting Everyone, Public, or the equivalent on the site you are using.
  3. Right-click the picture, and then click Properties.
  4. In the Properties dialog box, right-click the Address (URL) text box, and select the entire address. Be sure to capture the entire address because only the first two lines are shown in the text box. You must select until you see the file extension .jpg and the end of the address.
  5. Right-click the selected text, click Copy, and then click OK.
  6. Open Lync 2010 and click the picture next to your name.
  7. Click Show a picture from a web address. Right-click the text box, and then click Paste to paste in the address that you copied.
  8. Click the Connect to Picture button. If you see Connected to picture successfully, click OK.

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