Bulk Photo resizing in OS X?

September 11, 2005 7:38 AM

Has anyone found a good software for OS X that resizes photos in bulk?

I can't believe I can't find some app like this somewhere. I shoot photos that have 3-4MB files associated with them. I'd like to just put vacation photos on the web without having to open each file in Photo shop to resize it (so I don't have to upload a 4MB file). It seems like with the explosion of digital photogs, this app should be around, but I haven't been able to find it.

I've tried writing Automator scripts (they don't work for bulk). I've tried one or two apps that proport to do it (they crash). I searcched the archives, I hope this question hasn't been asked/answered before...

posted by soundboy to technology (12 comments total)

ImageMagick
posted by ataraxian at 7:42 AM on September 11, 2005

ImageMagick Corrected Link
posted by ataraxian at 7:43 AM on September 11, 2005

When I did it, I used GraphicConverter. It may not be a feature available in the free version, though.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:44 AM on September 11, 2005

Load them into iPhoto and use the Export function to save smaller copies. You can delete them from the iPhoto library when you've finished.
posted by cillit bang at 7:45 AM on September 11, 2005

I've tried writing Automator scripts (they don't work for bulk)

I use Automator for this, first selecting the photos that I want to resize in iPhoto and then calling the "prep for flickr" Automator script that resizes and saves them locally. I then use the flickr uploader to handle the rest of the task. Contact me offlist (email is in profile) if you'd like a copy of the script.
posted by jperkins at 7:51 AM on September 11, 2005

Photoshop can batch process a folder of images and apply user-defined actions. The actions palette allows you to hit record, then do what you wantever you want to a test image (resize, change dpi, etc) then hit stop. Photoshop remembers this sequence of actions, which can be applied en masse using the "batch" command under the "automate" menu under "file."
posted by Jeff Howard at 8:33 AM on September 11, 2005

Not to shamelessly promote my friend's software, but photo Drop is cool. I think it's still in beta, however, so make a quick backup.
posted by themadjuggler at 10:29 AM on September 11, 2005

What isn't working with your Automator script? I've got one like jperkins, only mine starts from files in the Finder rather than iPhoto. But it works just fine for large numbers of files.
posted by jjg at 12:44 PM on September 11, 2005

To expand on ataraxian's suggestion (which, in my humble opinion, is absolutely the correct answer), once you install ImageMagick, open a terminal window and navigate to the directory where your photos are stored. Then, execute something like this:

mogrify -resize 1000x1000 *JPG

The 1000x1000 thing says that you'd like the widest dimension to be 1000 pixels. The aspect ratio will be maintaned, so this works for pictures of mixed rotations, if you have those. This modifies the actual files in place, so make copies unless you want to permanently change them.

ImageMagick also does plenty of other things. For more information, try man convert at the command line once you've installed the software.
posted by odinsdream at 4:28 PM on September 11, 2005

SmallImage2 works great for me.

I haven't tried the other tools listed here.
posted by sol at 6:58 PM on September 11, 2005

ImageResiZor
posted by dpcoffin at 10:06 AM on September 12, 2005

I use Resize! and love it.
posted by marc10 at 1:40 PM on June 6, 2006