res images down while exporting

[Damnskippy]

I am using pictures to exe to make slide shows of images I take for clients to order from. I shoot with a 6.3MP camera and the slide sows will have 150 or more images in them sometimes. In playing with the demo version (4.3 beta8) if I add 10 images and make the exe it is around 35MB. That would make a slide show with 100 images about 350MB.

While that will still fit on a CD I have to wonder if my client has an older PC if the high res files are going to drag the slide show down to unwatchable.

Is there any way to have Pictures to exe res the images down to what I specify? I setup the show to be 800x600 and would like the max demension of the images to be 500 pixels to fit within the window. I can go into Photoshop and res them all down but that is a lot of time involved just to make a slide show. I tried some other applications and while they do res the images down I like Pictures to exe better and would prefer to stay with it.

Thanks for your time and you have a great product.

[Damnskippy]

Sorry about the double post it acted like it did not post so I hit it again

[Ken Cox]

Skippy

you will have to resave your images in photoshop -- i believe there is a "save for web" setting.

save them under a different name so that you stll have the originals.

most members use jpgs in the 75 to 125 kb size in their shows

and creative art does not come "easy"

ken

[Damnskippy]

LOL yeah I know about the does not come easy part.

Well I use the high quality setting on my camera in .jpg format most of the time unless I shoot in RAW. I made a show lat night with 19 images in .jpg format without resing them down from the camera and it was like 65 megs.

Still, I think this is a feature that would be extremely usefull and make using Pictures to exe much more of a pleasure. It is the easiest app I tried (I tried a lot of them) to get good results but if I have to spend an hour just getting the images ready to bring in that makes it much slower.

The export for web will not do what I want though that would be nice if it would. I want to limit the max deminsion of the images and I usually do a little unsharp masking after resampling that much. So it is a three step process- change to 72dpi (no resample), then resample to max demension of 500 pixels, apply unsharp masking and do a save as. If Pictures to exe would let me set the max demension of the files and resample them when I export the exe it would save me tons of time. As long as the resampling was done well I might could live without the unsharp masking though if it would let you set that it would be perfect!

Being a professional photographer I know a lot of people that use Pictures to exe and the next competitor seems to be Pro Show Gold. I prefer Pictures to exe even though Pro Show will resample the images for you because the interface and workflow is better to me.

Just my $0.02 worth

[GLS48]

For what it’s worth,

I use ACDSee batch resize to resize all images I will use in a show and save them to a second directory. I shoot everything with a Digital Rebel 6.3 Meg camera in high resolution and the batch resize function will do a 144 or so images in about 45 seconds. Most likely there is someone here that can direct you to a freeware program that will do the same.

George

[alrobin]

I use Irfanview for most of my batch resizing, re-jpegging, thumbnails, you name it - it's easy to use, and it's free!

For unsharp masking, brightness/contrast adjustments, cropping, etc., though, I like a little more individual control.

[denwell]

Take a look at Breeze Browser too - I think it will do all you want in a batch process too !

I use it all the time to resize my large image files down to around 150K - it will sharpen and adjust exposure etc, as well - borders, captions, watermarks all are easily added in one click.

Breeze Browser

Den (NE UK)

[ContaxMan]

Why not write a PS action to do the sizing for you - it's only a few minutes job & will save a lot of messing around later.

Of course, if you have CS (PS 8) you can use the file browser to do all the work.

[Guest Techman1]

As Roger (ContaxMan) says, you already have Photoshop which is one of the best programs available (IMHO). You can create an Action to do exactly what you are wanting (Image size, 72 dpi, Unsharpen Mask, Save to another directory). Creating actions in Photoshop is very easy. If you haven't created any previously you might do a search on the web to find a tutorial on the subject or you can visit this site they may have what you are looking for: http://share.studio.adobe.com/axBrowseProd...uctType.asp?t=5

Once you create your Photoshop action, you can either run a batch process or an droplet (I believe that's what they call it). In batch mode, you simply select your Action run the Automate drop down and select Batch. Then a menu pops up and you can specify the source directory and a target directory (and rename, etc.). It will then run all of your files against your Action and save the files to the directory where you want them. The Droplet basically does the same thing as the batch mode, but you can setup a target directory for PTE files only (before hand) and specify your Action, etc. just like in batch. Photoshop creates an executable that you can put on your Windows Desktop. Then when you're ready to process a customers images for prep to PTE, you simply drag and drop your new directory onto the Droplet and it opens Photoshop and processes all of your files and puts them into this previously created directory. Then when its done just move the files into another directory and your ready for next time. This may sound more complicated than it actually is.

I do both the Batch and the Droplet, just depends on if I want to also have batch rename my files for some reason. I simply start the process and walk off for coffee. When I return, my files are ready to go into PTE. With its new Light Table, this is just a breeze to move things around and I'm ready to burn to CD or DVD depending on my requirement.

Anyway, please give Photoshop a try and see if it works for you.

Good luck,

Fred

[Jimbo]

DS..you could give PIXRESIZER a try, it's freeware--no Spyware etc--and it does the job nicely. And speedily. And easily. Its homepage:

http://bluefive.pair.com/index.php

Jim.

[Ken Cox]

I put my "PRO THINKER's HAT" on and i think EZThumbs will do all the resizing and it is also free!!

http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/?Easy%20Thumbnails=2800

funny how we overlook the little freebies all the time

Al Robinson remembered Irfanview's talents and that brought out other ways to do it etc

one doesn't need a Ferrari to do a "Mini" chore

and i dont think the goal of pte is to become a full fledged grapics editor, tho' Igor mentioned quite some time ago there was a possibilty of enabling a "smarter" editor -- guess it got lost in his "To do list"

ken