Quicky reduce resolution of numerous image files

[thelaughingtree]

Hey everyone,
Its been a while since I've logged on... I hope everyone is well.

I've got a question for you all & I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction.

I'm wondering how I could go about taking a large number of high res image files (like 200-400 images) & quickly & almost automatically reducing the resolution & image size to a non-printable, but viewable-on-the-monitor sized image.

Here's the situation:
My wife has recntly started her own business of portrait photagraphy...
We are trying to refine the process a bit... She takes many photos during each shoot & wants to provide the client with a disk to take home to select the 4 or 5 for final printing. She takes the photos in a large res, but doesn't want to give the client the large res files (as they can simply go & print them out themselves).

We are brainstorming of different ways to get the low res image files to the client quickly. The only idea that we can come up with yet is to take each one into photoshop, reduce them one by one & then either zip/email them to the client or mail them a disc.

That process is way too slow & inefficient. We are wondering if there is a program in which you can take a large number of large image files & quickly reduce the res, so we can send the client home with a disk at the end of the photo shoot.

Maybe there is a program in which we can send the files to a 'viewable only' format. That program of course would need to have the files in a format which could be viewed on any computer.

The upshot is, how can we get what are initially large resolution image files quikly to the client in a way that we can retain the rights to the images (which is an industry standard) & prevent them from going to Walgreens to print them out themselves?

Is there a program that can help me with this? We are PC based if that makes any difference. We have all adobe software & other design tools like quark (although we only really have used & understand photoshop & illustrator thus far). Maybe one of those Adobe programs does this? Any help that you can offer with this is dearly DEARLY appreciated.

Sincerely,
Tree

 

[PC Hobbyist]

Well, three options come to mind quickly. In your case, I recommend OPTION 3.

OPTION 1

If you have windows XP, you could try installing the free PowerToy "Image Resizer". It will install into your right-click menu as "Resize Pictures". You select all the images you want to resize, then right-click on them and choose the "resize pictures" option. You are then asked what resolution you want and the pictures are resized (leaving the originals untouched).

This method will create the smallest file size than any other method I know of - and the quality is very decent.


OPTION 2

If you have a PC (not a mac) - use the "batch convert" or "batch resize" option of FastStone Image Viewer. This is my post in another thread about it.

I absolutely love FastStone Image Viewer and I highly highly recommend it. It is free, does a great job and displaying photos in full screen, has extra features like batch renaming, batch converting, batch resizing, basic photo adjustments etc..., you can view up to 4 photos at the same time full screen to compare them, and it is very flexible and configurable to your likings. I recommend setting it's file associations to all the picture formats so that photos will automatically open in full-screen mode (via FastStone) whenever you double click on them. You can also choose whether to show the photo's name in full-screen view or not. That is really helpful if you are going through a bunch of photos and want to write down which ones you will use for something.

The mini version is FastStone MaxView. That only has the photo viewing features and nothing else.

Both come in regular free installation version and in free stand-alone, portable versions to carry on your USB thumb drive.

Here is the link. They also have other freeware like ScreenCapture and so on.
http://www.faststone.org/

So, can you tell I love this program? I can't believe it is totally free - no adware, no spyware or anything like that. I does not organize your photos, but if what you are looking for is a photo VIEWER then this is definitely the way to go.

PS - one more thing..... while viewing a photo in full-screen mode, you can move your mouse to each of the four ends of your screen and different menus with options will pop up for quick access. Okay, okay, I'll stop. I just think it is a great program.

OPTION 3

In your case, this is the option I would recommend. It is the more professional one used by many photographers. You can use Photoshop's "automate PDF Presentation" options (under File - then Automate) to create a single .pdf document with all the pictures in a given folder.
It gives you the option to reduce resolution, set a password on the file, set another password to prevent the file from being printed or edited, etc... As long as you choose the option "presentation" in this process, you will end up with one pdf document with the all the pictures to be viewed as a slideshow in full-screen mode. Just email that file to the client and you are set. I recommend playing around with the settings until you get the end result you want.

.

 

[litebulb1.com]

If you have a mac you can use Automator to make a script to make a new copy of the pictures and reduce the resolution by whatever you want.