How to resize a bunch of pictures at once

How to batch resize images with PhotoShop

I’m writing this tutorial with PhotoShop CS3 in mind, since that is what I use at work, but I’ve used PS since 5.0, so if you’re working with an earlier version of the program the steps are pretty much the same. Before you begin, put all the images you need to resize into a folder. If you’re a bit uncomfortable, make a backup copy of it.

1. Open PhotoShop
2. Select File>Scripts>>Image Processor
3. In the new dialog window, select your source folder in the top section and your destination folder below that. I’d recommend creating a new folder for your destination, thereby avoiding overwriting your original files in case at first you’re not happy with the result, you can go back, tweak and try again.
4. In the next section, set your desired quality pixel dimensions and file type. you’ll see a box marked Save as JPEG. Check that off if you want to make JPEGS, otherwise PhotoShop will retain the original file type. As far as quality goes, it’s up to you. You might want to experiment by manually resizing a few images and trying different qualities to see what suits you. Personally, I never go below 30%.
5. Click Run to start the script and watch the magic.

How to batch resize images for zero fucking cash

What I’d suggest if you’re going to take the free route is to install GIMP (because you need an image editor) and then use one of a few other programs I’m going to suggest to handle the resizing. I’d walk you through writing a batch script for GIMP or how to compile a plug-in to handle batch resizing, but I’m afraid it’s more work than I’m willing to do and I’d bet you don’t have the attention span to put up with it since you read this blog. If you want to take a crack at it, this plug-in is pretty popular, but since I’m going to assume that not every reader is using Linux like me, it’s just better this way, I think. GIMP is cross-platform, like I mentioned, so get that. Once that’s settled, here are some viable options:

For Windows:

1. MS Power-Tools Image Resizer: Microsoft actually makes a batch resizer as part of it’s Power-Tools collection. It’s from the corporate devil itself, but as I understand, it works well enough and allows you to batch resize photos with a simple right-click. You can find this program on this page.
2. Picture Resizer: A freeware tool for batch resizing of JPG pictures and photos. It has a drag-and drop GUI. Link.
3. Visualizer Photo Resize: Yet another freeware tool. Available here.
4. PIXresizer: Free, free, free. Not a penny charged. Get yours now.

There others out there, but one of those should be work for you.

For OSX:

1. ImageMagick: A command line application, but incredibly powerful. It’s open source and can be downloaded here. See it’s entry under Linux below for more information.
2. Dropic!: This is a drag and drop app, but limits you to a choice of only a few sizes. It’s free and is located here.
3. iResize: Batch resize and compress images in TIFF, JPEG, PICT, GIF and PSD formats. Also free and can be grabbed up here.
4. Resize!: I don’t know too much about this one, but apparantly it works, is free and is here.

For Linux:

1. ImageMagick: A free software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images. It can read, convert and write images in a large variety of formats. Images can be cropped, colors can be changed, various effects can be applied, images can be rotated and combined, and text, lines, polygons, ellipses and BÃzier curves can be added to images and stretched and rotated. It’s a command line application and often comes bundled with Linux distros, so chances are you might already have it. It’s very popular and highly regarded as well as open source. The project page can be reached here.
2. bbips: A menu driven bash script that uses ImageMagick to “batch” process entire directories of images all at once. Go here.
3. Picwiz: A simple picture resizing wizard that is meant to be called from a Konqueror context menu (for KDE users). Here’s a link to the SourceForge project page.