33554432 bytes is 32 megabytes, so that isn't the problem. Somewhere the software is identifying something as larger than it is.

FWIW, your images should be much smaller than 400 kb. For the classifieds I size all my pics to 700 pixels wide, by whatever the height works out to, the resolution is always 72 ppi. 700 pix is considered by a lot of people to be the widest browser/screen friendly size for use on the web.

Sized that way with little compression your jpeg's should end up under 100k. With moderate compression you can get them down to about 30-40k and still looking good.