Batch resizing

[Simpo Two]

I've just been asked if I can upload a set of wedding photos for people to view/buy. I can easily make a new pro gallery at Photobox but there are 530 images of about 5Mb each. I make that a 22 hour upload!

I'd like to crunch them down to 2Mb or maybe less (bearing in mind people might want to order A4 prints) and I know Photoshop has batch/macro/action thingies - although they're very unfriendly to set up. However as far as I know you have to load all the files into PS first, and I think if I tried it that it would simply die.

So, how does one take 530 5Mb files and turn them easily and quickly into 530 2Mb files in a seperate folder? What do you do?

[4hero]

what version of photoshop are you using?

[Altrezia]

Set up a new action.
Record yourself resizing, and save-for-webbing, and closing.
Run that on the 'folder' you want to resize. It'll do one at a time.

[Simpo Two]

CS2

Re actions, can you give me a numpty guide please as this is an area of PS I'm not familiar with. I seem to recall that if you're not very careful it overwrites the originals.

[dtmpower]

I have a batch 'resize' program - email me and I will send you a copy.

[Simpo Two]

Hang on, it looks as if the Pro Galleries have been moved somewhere else so I'm wasting my time. I'm not uploading them into a Pro Gallery after all. Bloody Photobox, why can't they keep anything the same?

Right, I've stopped the upload. Is it worth staying with Photobox or are there better places to put photos and make a few £ from sales?

[Greg964]

I use irfanview for that very task. Its free and fast and apparently has a better resizing algorithm than PS.

Instructions:
File > Batch Conv > Select files to convert in top right window > Add > Set output dir > Click 'Advanced' set new size if desired > Click 'Options' set JPG quality > Start batch

[Fezant Pluckah]

http://pixresizer.en.softonic.com/

[MartinP]

Simpo Two said:

Hang on, it looks as if the Pro Galleries have been moved somewhere else so I'm wasting my time. I'm not uploading them into a Pro Gallery after all. Bloody Photobox, why can't they keep anything the same?

Right, I've stopped the upload. Is it worth staying with Photobox or are there better places to put photos and make a few £ from sales?

PhotoBox have been giving their site a make over. Assuming you already had a Pro Gallery, then it should still be there, but is different from the albums that they have ported across onto the new system (confused - I was). Once you've logged in to PhotoBox there is a "Helpful links" box on the right hand side. There will be a link on there to your Pro Gallery.

I hope they sort this out as I now have copies of my previous Pro Gallery folders in My Albums which are different to the albums in my Pro Gallery...

[_dobbo_]

Simpo Two said:

Hang on, it looks as if the Pro Galleries have been moved somewhere else so I'm wasting my time. I'm not uploading them into a Pro Gallery after all. Bloody Photobox, why can't they keep anything the same?

Photobox sent an email about this the other day, they have re-structured pro galleries now. When you upload to your pro gallery it also creates the same named gallery in your standard account.

You can also use an FTP uploader now, which is a bit more reliable than HTTP in my experience.

photobox said:

Following some feedback from within our pro community we've made a couple of interesting improvements that we hope you will like:

Firstly, we have enabled FTP upload to your Pro Gallery account. To upload to your Pro Gallery account, please go to ftp://ftp.photobox.co.uk. Once there, login with your usual email address and password. Note: the album will also be created on the new site

Secondly, we have now configured the upload process so that when you upload to your Pro Gallery account it will automatically create the same album in your regular account on the new site. In other words you will no longer be required to upload twice.

Note: this will work for both the onsite Aurigma uploader and the newly enabled FTP service.

Enjoy and as always we welcome your feedback and on going support.

Best wishes

The PhotoBox Team

[VxDuncan]

Basically, load one image into PS. Go to the actions pallete, use the record button at the bottom to record a new action (macro), enter name. Then work the through the procedure you would normally do to rescale the image. Press stop on the actions palette to stop recording. No need to include a save command - the automate function can control this, save to the right folder and give it a sensilble filename. When you want to run it, go to file->Automate->batch, then select input/output folders and the action you just saved. Then start it going...

Tricky things are: you need to use RELATIVE sizes if the files are cropped / different aspect ratios. This also makes automating borders / watermarks a bit of a pain. You'll probably want to add an unsharp mark for the final resolution in the action also.

PS only loads one image at a time btw, so shouldn't kill your machine.

[dhutch]

I use Jasc Image Robot, which is a spin off from the earlier versions Paint Shop Pro (i use PSP 5 still) and a very good tool. Simple and self contained, yet powerfull and well put together.

However i also believe CS3 will do it nicly for you, and have been meaning to get setup with that myself.
- It can also handle HDR and Panorama stiching, which again im also doing with further 3rd party programs.



Daniel

[Simpo Two]

Thanks very much everyone for the quick and helpful replies.

PS was too complex, PX resizer was too simple (mashing 5Mb into 150Kb!) and I didn't try Irfanview, but the software kindly sent over by John (dtmpower) was just the job. Set source and destination folders, size and compression, file prefix and BOSH off it goes

Edited by Simpo Two on Wednesday 2nd July 12:42

[NiceCupOfTea]

I use a prog called FastStone Photo Resizer which does batch resizing / editing / borders / watermarks etc.

Works for me.

[MonkeyHanger]

There's no need to fart around with Actions in CS2.

File / Scripts / Image Processor.

Select your Source & Destination files and image size options and go have a cuppa while it does its magic.

Edited by MonkeyHanger on Wednesday 2nd July 22:02

[Simpo Two]

MonkeyHanger said:

File / Scripts / Image Processor.

Select your Source & Destination files and image size options and go have a cuppa while it does its magic.

Oooh... I'll try that next time, thanks!

If I was designing PS I 'd have put it under Image > Resize > Batch but that's just me being logical, damn.

[miniman]

MonkeyHanger said:

There's no need to fart around with Actions in CS2.

File / Scripts / Image Processor.

Select your Source & Destination files and image size options and go have a cuppa while it does its magic.

Now that's a good tip, especially as it will also apply an action to each image as it processes them. I know it's not "perfect", but I have an auto-all action which does auto levels, colour and contrast so for quick snaps that need resizing and a quick post process this will be really useful.

[WTD]

I use imagemagick and it's command line processing, really handy as you can do some awesome processing with it!

[miniman]

WTD said:

I use imagemagick and it's command line processing, really handy as you can do some awesome processing with it!