Help! Making thumbnails fast.

[GSHodg]

I've spent quite a bit of time searching this forum without finding an answer, so posting a question...

For a batch of hundreds of TIFF images, I want to generate 2 thumbnail images of each to use on a website and also for emailing. Both thumbnails will have a © notice on them (a © symbol and url) as text overlaying the image. The largest thumbnail will be 550 pixels on the long side 72dpi, the smaller will be 200 pixels on the long side also 72 dpi. All three files will have the information in the metadata (such as description, keywords etc).

What I've done so far is do-able for a few pics, but unworkable for large batches. What I've done is:

1. Open the TIF file
2. Open the File>File Info and save the 'metadata template' (as this is lost during Save For Web)
3. Add text layer with © notice
4. Save for Web choosing 550 pixel on either width or height depending upon picture orientation, and choosing the quality to get filesize of around 100K, calling it "image ID web large.JPG"
5. Close the TIF file
6. Open the JPG "Image ID web large.JPG"
7. Open File>File INfo to re-apply the metadata from the template made earlier
8. Re-save the the JPG "Image ID web large.JPG"
9. Save for Web choosing 200 pixels on either width or height depending upon picture orientation, and choosing the quality to get filesize of around 20K, calling it "image ID web small.JPG"
10. Close the JPG "Image ID web large.JPG"
11. Open the JPG "Image ID web small.JPG"
7. Open File>File Iifo to re-apply the metadata from the template made earlier
12. Re-save the the JPG "Image ID web small.JPG"

I'm sure there's a smarter way to work than the above, but I haven't found it yet. All help greatly appreciated.

[PhotosGuy]

Try free JAlbum for lots of skins, & fast thumb generation. They even have a help forum.
Try the "Vertical" skin with the Black.css "Style" for a clean album that doesn't get between your work & the viewer.
http://jalbum.net/

[GSHodg]

Thanks for the link - that's quite a powerful piece of freeware.

Whilst I don't need it to build the webpage for me (as I'm having one built with a search engine), it does build two thumbnails very fast and put them in sub-directories. However a couple of points for all to look out for:

1. Unless you turn it off, it will automatically build a link to Shutterfly on the web page - where people viewing your page can buy a print.

2. The two thumbnails that it builds, whilst in separate sub-directories have exactly the same name as the master file. Something I'm trying to avoid so I don't get confused between various copies of the same image (I always append the size in the filename: Image ID.TIF, Image ID A4.JPG, ImageID web large.JPG etc)

3. The thumbnail images don't have the metadata in them, which is one of the things I'm trying to do.

Anyone else got any tips or actions, to take a batch of images and quickly build two smaller thumbnails of each?

Thanks

G

[TomPierce]

If you are using Windows you can do a batch rename with a DOS command
If the filename is Image_123.jpg and you want it to be Image_123 web large.jpg use the following when you are in the subdirectory in a DOS window:
rename Image_???.jpg "Image??? web large.jpg"
this will rename all the files in the subdirectory leaving the chracters 'under' the ? unchanged

If you are not familiar with DOS commands then this won't help much, but is the only way to rename multiple files with a single command that I know of

If you are using a Mac then none of this made sense :)

Tom

[TomPierce]

AARRGGHH

I didn't realize it would do that: let's try that command again without the smilies this time:

rename image_???.jpg "image_??? web large.jpg"

the characters 'under' the ? won't be changed, and the double quotes have to be used if there is a space in the new file name

[PhotosGuy]

3. The thumbnail images don't have the metadata in them, which is one of the things I'm trying to do. Did you try the forum? Maybe someone has a fix for that. What I like about JA is that it's constantly getting better.
I've started using the free DIM to rename files. Seems to do everything I need it to, & it also works well with raw files.
http://www.alanlight.com/dim/Dim.htm