Using Resizing Options in our Batch Image Processors
One of the most used features in our Batch Image Processors is the Batch Resizing function and instead of providing you one way to resize an image, we provide you with more than 4 ways to do it on our Mac application and more than 6 ways on our Windows applications.
Resizing Options from CM Batch Photo Processor (Mac)
Resizing Option from JBatch It (Windows)
As Batch Image Resizing is one of the core features of our applications, we include as many ways as possible to perform your task. There isn’t one method which will fit all needs so we cannot definitively say which method should be used. However, a little in-depth explanation of each option may help demystify the choices available.
As Is
This option just turn off the resizing options and all images will retain their original width and height.
Downsize By Pixels
As you may well know, all photos on the screen is made up of pixels which are little dots of color placed side by side to form an image. The more pixels there is, the bigger the picture and the reverse is true in this case. With modern digital cameras, it is possible to take pictures which are much larger than the regular computer monitor which can run to several tens of megabytes. It is great for viewing on a local computer but even with fast gigabytes internet connections, it can take a while for each photo at its full glory to load and now the main audience over the internet is on mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablets. It can be painfully slow and costly to view such full resolution pictures over LTE or 4G and that is where Downsizing comes into play.
Downsizing basically is reducing the dimensions of the picture and thereby reducing the file size thus speeding up loading of the picture on a remote computer. Saving on disk storage space can also be an added benefit. I do find that taking and viewing at full resolution doesn’t always provide the best image quality and downsizing it a tat bit will yield better pictures.
What happens in Downsizing is that pixels are dropped to create a smaller picture. For instance if you downsize to half the original dimension, every alternate pixels will be skipped while forming the new picture.
There are two core settings you need to work with which is the Width and Height options. These are in pixels and thus in whole numbers. In Downsizing, the Width and Height are the maximum dimensions that the images can have and anything greater than that will be downsized.
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In both the Mac and Windows application, if you set a number for both the Width and Height, say 500 on both options, the picture will automatically be sized to a square with the Width being 500 pixels and Height being 500 pixels.
On our Windows applications, if you want it to retain the Ratio Aspect (keep the same width and height proportion as the original photo), you will need to check the Keep Dimension Ratio Aspect option otherwise the dimension which is set to 0 will mean the original dimension for that side. For example, if you have the keep dimension ratio aspect unchecked and set Width to 500 pixels and height to 0 and the original image has a width of 1000 pixels and a height of 700 pixels , you get an image of Width 500 pixels and height 700 pixels. This is so to cater for times when you want to keep one dimension as it is without knowing what that dimension might be especially if all your images are of varying dimensions.
Another option on Windows is the Swap Dimension if Portrait Image, this may sound a little cryptic but let me explain. For photos taken with a digital camera, it is almost always a landscape picture, ie where width is longer than height. At times when you take portrait images, the width will be shorter than height. However if you want our applications to treat the longer dimension as Width and the shorter as Height then check this option.
On CM Batch Photo Processor (Mac), just set one of the dimension as 0 and that dimension will be adjusted to match the ratio aspect. For example if you have a photo with Width 1000 and height 700 pixels and set the Width to 500 pixels and height as 0, you end up with a resized photo with width of 500 pixels and height of 350 pixels.
Upsize by Pixels
Upsizing by pixels basically is the reverse to the above-mentioned downsizing options. It basically add pixels to increase the picture dimensions. It does so by duplicating neighoring pixels sort of like stretching a printed balloon. The more it is stretched, the greater the degrading of the picture quality. If you need to just upsize by about 10 to 20%, the quality drop may not be visible to the naked eye. Anything greater than that will not be advisable. It is not possible to add details to the picture when it is not originally there.
As with Downsizing, Upsizing uses the same parameters. In this case, the Width and Height denotes the minimum width and height.
Resize by Percentage / By Percentage
Resizing by Percentage will always retain the ratio aspect. In this setting, the Percentage (%) option is only needed. A percentage of 100% is the baseline which works the same as As Is for the Resizing Method.
So for instance, if you set the Percentage to 80, the photo will be resized to 80% of the original size. For example if a photo has a width of 1000 pixels and a height of 800 pixels, it will be downsize to a width of 800 pixels and a height of 640 pixels.
By Cropping
The Resizing by Cropping is found only on our Windows application. It is effectively not a resizing method by an option to allow you to crop an image. This method was introduced because a client needed to crop scanned documents of its borders.
In this option, you will need to enter 4 parameters, the Width, Height, Crop X Axis and Crop Y Axis options. It might be daunting to remember exact pixels so we provided a simple solution for this.
First load up the list and do a preview of one of the images by double-clicking on the filename. Then use your mouse to drag and click the rubberband around the area you want to crop as above. Once you are satisfied with the settings, do a right-mouse click and select Set Crop Dimension. Once you do this, the 4 needed parameters will automatically be filled. This will work if all the images are of the same dimension and needed to crop the same way. It also helps keep all the images of the same width and height.
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By Frame
Resizing by Frame is also a Windows only option. This option was introduced because a client needed to create images of different dimensions to be of the same dimensions while retaining aspect ratio. It initially was a complex proposition but not one we will shy away from. What this option does is to initially create a blank image with the Width and Height settings and painted with the Frame Color. After which, the downsized image will be pasted in the middle of that image. So any dimension which is smaller than the frame with have the frame color showing.
In this option, you will need to set the Width and Height options which will be the frame dimensions. This will need to be specific pixel dimensions and 0 will not be accepted. The Frame Color option will determine the background color of the frame.
Above is just such an example where we set both Width and Height to 300 pixels. Obviously the original 1600 x 1200 pixels will not look good if it is just resized to 300 x 300 pixels. A Squished image will not be a viable or acceptable option. Thankfully, our batch image processors can handle this with ease by retaining both the ratio aspect and still provide you with the image dimension you require.
Resizing by Paper Size
The Resizing by Paper Size is unique to Batch TIFF Resizer and it will used the defined pixels for the various paper size and dots per inch to determine the number of pixels to be set.
Resizing by Ratio (1/4x, 1/3x, 1/2x, 3/4x, 1 1/2x and 2x)
The last sets of resizing methods will also retain the ratio aspect of the photos. These options are pretty self-explanatory.
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Resizing Images to Multiple Dimensions
If you want to only resized all your images to the one size dimensions then any of our batch image processing tools will stand up to the task. However if you say need to resize an image to multiple sizes, like a smaller images and a thumbnail sized image, our Batch It Pro and Batch It Ultra will meet that requirement as they provide the option to generate multiple sizes of the same photo in a single pass. Batch It Pro offers two sizes and Batch It Ultra offers three.
Of course, this does not mean that the other of our batch image processors cannot handle the task. That is where the Settings Profile comes into play. Where you can switch between the settings profiles with different resizing options.
Batch Image Resizing is available to