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I’ve been using CacheCrop to handle basic resizing for websites. It’s a much smarter way of handling this problem, IMO, and is fairly easy to set up.

cachecrop.stolen.la

hey out there, whats up with imagemagick?
i use it and i think im not alone :D

Thanks for a great list of resources! I’d like to add two more:

For windows, Format Factory
http://www.formatoz.com/

For Mac, iResize
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13039

I have used iResize in the past with great success, and recommend it. Format Factory is something I just learned about and while it’s interface is a little goofy, and some settings can be difficult to find, its laundry list of image and video format conversion capabilities are almost exhaustive.

I’ve been using IrfanView for many years. Honestly, it’s the best and fastest one I’ve ever come across. Very small footprint too. (By the way, it’s “IrfranView” not “Infan View”)

The batch processor that comes with SnagIt works pretty well for general stuff plus you have SnagIt’s features.

This app is FREE!
iResize
http://www.daniele.ch/downloads.html

irfanview is SO awesome. one of the best free programs ever & yes, its batch processing is even better and way more easier to use than, e.g., Photoshop’s.
it’s a real shame that even under linux there is nothing like it =(
i’ve tried out about all free batch processors for osx recently and none gave me the results i needed.

I can’t believe you guys didn’t mention XnView.

i use (shrink o matic) air app

If you can get your hands on it, Photoshop is far and away the best for batch processing if you know the interface. You can record really complicated actions and apply them to anything. I wouldn’t ever use anything else.

A couple of days ago I really needed to do batch processing and ended up one that I wasn’t really satisfied with. This list will help me find one that meets my needs. Thanks

I can only second some comments above mine: IrfanView forever. The features of this little app outshine anything I’ve used _ever_.
The batch processor alone is so powerful, it’s uneblievable that it fits in such a small app…

Irfanview vote for me! I’ve been using it to batch convert/rename for a long time now – and not just for images (just the renaming bit)!

The only downside with Irfanview is that it’s not a color management app otherwise it’d be be my one stop shop for converting client supplied images to the correct format.

Many thanks for letting me know about Phatch for Linux… I can’t believe I missed this gem.

Thnx for taking action on the FiPo fools..
I think u forgot one very usefull free tool for windows (xp only?): PowerToy image resize, only with a right click on a image.
But again a nice list :D

back in 98 there was Paint Shop Pro (jasc, now Corel) who is doing a good job, Also ACD See is one of the better ones with a solid batch functions like rename.

Pitty these are not mentioned here while they were all earlier on the market and free , at least the first 30 days.

Nice List…..Thanks a lot for it.
What About ThumbsPlus ?
The one I use most for batch processes.

ey!, wath about

XnView ?

I think it is great and free!

You should also try Pixer on Mac

Very intresting! I was looking for this some time back.
Thanks a lot. I do wonder why the ‘Picture Resizer Powertool’ for Win XP is not mentioned.
It’s very powerfull, and straight forward. Even better, it goes into you right click context menu which means you don’t need to start another application.
I don’t know if there is a similar tool for Win Vista, though.

Photo drop looks intresting. Might give it a try later on.
Thanks for the intresting post.
Good job, guys! :)

I miss also XnView. This is the best Viewer with many many features. And it is also free.

Batch Watermark Creator – great watermarking suite

I use Irfanview – which is mentioned here too but I think I will have a look at the other tools cause they really seem useful ! Great Post indeed !

EH EH EH… just tested Automator and it works!! Very good tutorial by eHow!

No love for Fireworks?

Also astounded that there’s no mention of XnView. IMHO it outrivals IrfanView in many aspects. Though IrfanView is a decent tool as well, used it for many years.

Use Photoshop CS3 to batch convert images! It Rocks!!!

Thanks for this inspiring list. I have been trying out a couple of them as I desperately needed such a tool. I found Phatch the king of all. It has the power of Photoshop batch actions but it is much more focused and dedicated to batch processing which makes it a breeze to use. You can easily add effects/actions and reorder them by drag and drop. I recommend everyone the extensive documentation, especially the tutorials:
http://photobatch.wikidot.com/tutorials

My favorite was 3d thumbnails with perspective and shadows with a few mouseclicks.

this is the best: Resize! (all platform) – http://www.kstudio.net/re.html

I’ve always used the little Windows Powertools resizer. It installs as a right click context menu item which is nice if you don’t want have to launch a separate application. I’m also a huge Irfanview fan.
ACDSee had an nice duplicate finder which I don’t see any of these apps having, which can be handy if your picture collection has grown with a more or less adhoc organic organizational structure over the year and you can’t remember what you already have copies of.

IrfanView rocks, most of the time. It’s super fast and light-weight, unlike Photoshop.

Nice! I’ve been using BatchImageResizer for awhile and it looks like its time to make the switch to get better results.

I just had to resize a photo yesterday and found an option inside Picasa2. Just go to: File – Export Picture to Folder. There you can change quality and pixels, etc. I haven’t tried it with more then one photo but I would imagine that it would work since Picasa also has more complex photo batch editing. (and of course it’s free too!)

Fireworks, folks… great batch processing.

I use XNview for basic image editing It offers also script and renaming capabililities
Another application with batch capability it is photoscape – it is not so strong with optimizing but have nice borders no only the classical margin

personally, i use bridge. but, if i didn’t already have it, i wouldn’t pay for software that comes free as part of osx. namely, sips which can also flip, rotate, etc. see man sips for all options.

Thank you for info. Although I am not a batch worker but I like to keep links on my side coz you never know when you need it. I generally use batchrename pro for renaming files etc. But dont edit in batch. I can probably use some references here.

Roshan
Freelance Developer

Really nice thanks for sharing

I’ve always used Downsize, which works for Mac.

Great Thanks Guys,

This is really interesting.. was looking for batch converters like this from a long time now

Cheers :)

I use ImageMagick tool to create thumbnails, resize, change format, rotate, apply filters and so on. Look how to use it http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-graf/

I am fan of Smashingmagazine.com ….Very nice :) it’s very useful to us. thanks for sharing.. keep sharing………

One of my favorite batch processing tools, because I often use Fireworks: factorycity.net/projects/pngcrushrrr/

thanks

It’s been mentioned before, but I’ll say it again: ImageMagick makes nearly all of this redundant. Try it.

I use the Batch Process tool in Fireworks. It’s got plenty of useful options and you can save oft-used sequences of edits to your desktop as quick shortcuts. I’ve not needed another batch editing tool.

Jason King

Another one: iPhoto Batch Enhancer

Hey Smashings you used just the standard file open dialogue for the Gimp-Plugin DBP review. DBP looks this way:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~hodsond/dbp-main.png
Anyway again a good selection, just XnView is missing :)

photoescape is good for img tool
http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php
freeware

hey guy, really useful post! but..
what about a tool to automate the banner production? Everyday I have to create many wap banner, many files of different dimensions in many different folders. Have you got any advice? Thanx a lot! :)

Great article.. If only I had known of some of these earlier, would of saved me hours resizing images.

I used to run an e-commerce store where resizing images was a tedious job that had to be done.. I manually edited thousands of photos… What a waste of time! I wish I had known about these back then…

Any one app cannot meet all the various batch image processing requirements. Unfortunately none of the new tools are quite that good. Most of these are ideal for just one or two processes.

If you count out the two biggies, Photoshop and Fireworks, there are some that have stood the test of time.

Compupic Pro hasn’t been updated for some time but is one of the best. It’s fast and has some very powerful batch processing functions, some of which are absent in the others. ACDsee is one of the fastest image management tools–though it doesn’t have as many features as Compupic.

Among the new ones, Faststone image viewer is very fast and has some excellent functions. This is the only one that gets my vote today.

I frequently use the free tool “Power Batch” from UniDream
It will resize, rename, watermark, crop, rotate, and a bunch of other stuff I rarely use.
Really fast and efficient.

i use XnView, easy & fast

Sizerox, a little tool for Mac OS X works very fast and is easy to use. It offers many features and it allows to creat your own preset, for example, to resize and rename or resize and watermark or resize and rotate. I use it a long time and I am very happy with it.

I am a windows luser, I just wasted precious time scrolling past software only for uptight-snobby-mac users.

A special thank for your article.

I got my last xmas gift today. It is Sizerox for mac. A great powerful friend for your photos.

Happy xmas and have a nice new year.

I’m trying to batch resize 166.667 images. All ranging from 5 to 7kb. The problem is no program or script I found could handle this much. They all crash. It´s probably a memory issue but is there some way to dodge this? Any ideas?

Helpfull and great article.
But I’m missing a ToC where I can pick a a programme for my OS, Licence, whatever. I’m not interesst reading about a mac programm when I use Linux.
Also there’s no “real” statement about the licence (freeware, shareware, copyleft etc.).

Thanks Simon

I agree with someone above. You can create a Photoshop action and then “Automate” or whatever they call it File -> Automate or similar. My wife’s a photographer so I have wedding galleries that need to covert from 4000×3000 to web size, plus add a watermark. I also got the action to handle vertical vs horizontal photos and apply a background frame. So now I just set it loose on the folder and come back an hour later to 500 photos that each had half a dozen processes performed. I was amazed at how easy it was.

Hi guys. I have just finished writing my utility for the same purpose. It is totally free. Hopefully it is useful for you guys.

Currently it has the following features:
Resize
Add Photo Frame
Image Watermark
Auto Rotate based on Exif.

It currently supports only JPG images (most commonly used in photography with digital camera). Depending on free time I have, there might be improvements in the near future.

You can find MODI by clicking the link. Thanks!