Trying to send pix

After doing a search for this topic, there were no results, so hopefully someone can help.  I'm trying to send pix that I've taken using my phone.  I go to COMPOSE MESSAGE, add the persons phone number, press MENU and tap ATTACH, then click on PICTURE.  Once I've done this, a message pops up stating "Message size limit reached...sorry, you cannot attach this to your message."  It's just a regular pic that I've taken of my dog, and I only have 4 pictures on my phone since it's new , so it's not like I have a lot of stuff on there, also not a long file or anything like that.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

Great, thank you very much for the help.  The phone is new to me so I had no idea about checking phone settings.....but why would the resolution for a picture I took with the phone, be to large to send?  Also, I see you said you use Handset.  Again, as a Hero newb, .....um, what is Handset?  Sorry for all the questions, but again, thanks for taking time to help.

I am a newbie also and someone suggested Handcent to me for a messaging problem I was having and also I got the resize message from Handcent when I tried to send a pic.   I love Handcent and have totally stopped using the installed messaging program.  It allows you to customize so much.  I do have a question regarding downloading the additional font packages.  Since I am new it scares me to try anything that I can't just download and go.  The instructions state that you can't launch the fonts.  I would have to download them to the main program.  Has anyone installed the extra fonts?  Can someone tell me what's involved?  I don't want to screw up what I have.

Thanks to all for the help.  As odd as it sounds, I was messing around with settings and slightly cropped my photo and it was able to be sent.  Not sure why my camera would allow me to take a photo that is too large to send, but I guess if I keep looking, I'll figure it out someday     

Its the settings you have your pictures at.  I had the same problem when I upped the size of the pics my phone takes.  Right now I have my camera set to 3 mega pixels and the quality is set to fine.  Anything above that and you'll get the message you're talking about.

You have to disable the stock messaging app. Open the stock app, press menu, press settings, scroll down to "Notification Settings", make sure notifications it is unchecked.  Now you should only get only one notification.  

Ok, well thought I'd add another reply/question pertaining to this subject.  As stated previously, i had performed a hard reset on my phone which stopped the pic issue with the "download button".  About 3 days after the hard reset, I started getting the same issue again.  I'm currently working with Sprint to resolve the issue, they said I'd probably have to get a new phone, but my question is, can downloading apps from the store, corrupt your phone?  My phone is only a few months old and yet performs like this. I understand it's a newer phone and it will have bugs, but this is too crazy!  Thanks for any valuable input.

Actually, you can keep the resolution at 5MB and change the quality level to fine and it keeps the pic size under the 1000kb limit