Batch resizing in Photoshop

[FlyingPete]

I am trying to make some actions to run as batches in Photoshop CS. THe main one I am interested in is resing, something fairly straight foward EXCEPT I can't get it to deal with orientation.

If I get it to resize all images to say 600x800, that is fine for landscape, but some will be portrait (thanks to people rotating them in XP for easier viewing, the doesn't alter the EXIF tag), plan B was to use percentages, but that doesn't work when the source image sizes differ (sometimes due to using lower resolution, mainly in conjunction with RAW).

Any ideas? Anyone got this one down to a fine art? It would also be good to fully automate it, each time my batch does a file it promts me for the level of JPG compression to use.

[cactusclay]

Not me, I struggle with one at a time.

[tim]

I'm sure i've seen actions that automate this, but I have a very low tech solution: I have two actions. I select portrait photos in the file browser, run the correct action, then do the same for portrait. If you come up with a better solution i'd love to see it, so do share!

I never got "save for web" working in an action either, so I use "save as", so if you have a solution for that i'm all ears too.

[rdenney]

I am trying to make some actions to run as batches in Photoshop CS. THe main one I am interested in is resing, something fairly straight foward EXCEPT I can't get it to deal with orientation.

There's a reason I own Breezebrowser in addition to Photoshop CS. Breezebrowser is designed for batch processing, and Photoshop is designed for processing images one at a time. BB will quite happily do any or all of: convert from RAW, resize to fit in a square of however many pixels (which solves your orientation problem), orient the photos properly, set levels, set gamma, sharpen, and compress to JPEG on a whole folder of images, putting the results in a subfolder called "proofs". And it will do that in the background while I'm working on another photo in Photoshop. I would have spent much more just in time trying to figure out how to make Photoshop do it as a batch process.

Rick "for whom time is precious" Denney

[FlyingPete]

There's a reason I own Breezebrowser in addition to Photoshop CS. Breezebrowser is designed for batch processing, and Photoshop is designed for processing images one at a time. BB will quite happily do any or all of: convert from RAW, resize to fit in a square of however many pixels (which solves your orientation problem), orient the photos properly, set levels, set gamma, sharpen, and compress to JPEG on a whole folder of images, putting the results in a subfolder called "proofs". And it will do that in the background while I'm working on another photo in Photoshop. I would have spent much more just in time trying to figure out how to make Photoshop do it as a batch process.

Rick "for whom time is precious" Denney

Hmmm I will have to check this out, what is the approximate cost?

[rdenney]

Hmmm I will have to check this out, what is the approximate cost?

Breezebrowser is $50, and Breezebrowser Pro is $70. And you can download first and try it out (for a total of 12 images at a time).

www.breezesys.com

Rick "who has the pro version but who isn't sure it would be needed for this" Denney

[ggreene]

In Photoshop CS try using File -> Automate -> Fit Image. Enter the maximum
vertical and horizontal size and it will resize the image to the longest dimension.

Hope that helps.

Greg

[tim]

What a great tip Greg, thanks!

[Wazza]

I made a little batch recording a couple of years ago, and have been using it ever since.

As all my shots are different sizes etc, I only use it for my thumbnail images on my photo pages.
The action is to resize to 150pixels max dimension, unsharp mask, (to crisp them up), and save for web at about 30-40 percent. This makes little thumbnails only 2-4kb large. :)

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/mount_sun3-s.jpg (http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/mount_sun3.jpg)
And just a click to open the full size. Very basic, but that's my only requirments for my sharing photos page.

[pickrrya]

There's a reason I own Breezebrowser in addition to Photoshop CS. Breezebrowser is designed for batch processing, and Photoshop is designed for processing images one at a time. BB will quite happily do any or all of: convert from RAW, resize to fit in a square of however many pixels (which solves your orientation problem), orient the photos properly, set levels, set gamma, sharpen, and compress to JPEG on a whole folder of images, putting the results in a subfolder called "proofs". And it will do that in the background while I'm working on another photo in Photoshop. I would have spent much more just in time trying to figure out how to make Photoshop do it as a batch process.

Rick "for whom time is precious" Denney
Hey, I need to resize pictures to fit into a blank white 360X360 square for a Web Page. I am building a shopping cart and my original pictures are not perfect squares. I downloaded the trial version of Breezebrowser and am not sure how to do this. Is the Pro version required? Step by step directions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[René Damkot]

No idea about BB, but newer versions of PS (CS2 and up) include "Fit image".
File > Automate > Fit image. Put 360pixels in both boxes.

[Bobster]

btw this is was necro'd by pickrrya after 3 years m8 ;)

[pickrrya]

Yeah, I already looked at this. It does resize the picture down to the right size if I wanted to manually move it into a square, but it does not add white in the blank spots to make it a square for me.

[René Damkot]

Create an action. First do "fit image", then go Image > Canvas size > set 360x360.

[ekie]

like tim, i have 2 separate actions for portraits and landscapes. after i export pics from lightroom, i have 2 temp directories for portraits and landscapes that i drag the pics into and run the action on.

my action includes
-image resize
-apply usm
-create new layer
-do selection with height of 30px and width of image, and do a 20% fill of white
-canvas resize (for black borders)
-open watermark.psd file
-select all > copy
-close watermark.psd file
-paste watermark and move to corner
-flatten image
-save as
-close

im gonna try that automate > fit image into my action to see how that'll work though .. :D

[fiveFPS]

since this topic was brought up again I was wondering when you resize from large to small pixels. Photo tends to pixelate.. do you guys have a way to prevent this from happening?

[tim]

like tim, i have 2 separate actions for portraits and landscapes.

If you're talking about me I don't have desperate actions, I don't think I said I do. I use the fit image command.

[ekie]

If you're talking about me I don't have desperate actions, I don't think I said I do. I use the fit image command.

lol wrong person then :lol:

[AndreaBFS]

Call me crazy, but I just use the web photo gallery option since you can choose a variable resize based on height or width. Then I just take the output images and delete the rest of the crap. Of course, first I run the image processor to save all my finished PSDs as JPG, full size, full quality... then I use those images as the source for the web photo gallery.

[Andrushka]

it seems to me that the batch resize in DPP is the simplest/fastest

[BCRose]

Get Lightroom...it is made for processing images. Does this task very easily and efficiently. Get the trial version and give it a go.

[theflyingkiwi]

wow you learn something new every day.

thanks ggreene