Digital Photo Frames...
 

Just bought my missus a Samsung SPF-83H DPF for her birthday (yeah, yeah, I tried to get a 83V with wireless but there isn't one in NZ yet).

It's an 800 X 600 pixel 8" screen, inbuilt 128 meg memory, with USB connect and takes CF/ SD/ MMC/ MS & XD cards to boot. It will even work as a mini second monitor on a PC (XP SP2 only) using the USB link and supplied software (how cute is that?).

The question is this:

Being 800 X 600 I'm assuming the best display will be if the piccies are downressed to this beforehand using Photoshop et al, saving a shed load of space into the bargain.

But how oh how do you downress a thousand piccies in bulk?

The thought of doing them singly is too much for my poor surviving grey cell to contemplate.

I could just dump it on her of course, now that's a thought!


CS

GraphicConverter does this kind of batch conversion, but I think its mac only. There must be a pc equivalent - since there is so much more software out there for pc :-)

Thanks Colin..........
 

but THINK I may have found a way using our PC's.

There's a freebie download from Google called Picasa2, which is quite a stunning little app. Roots round all your hard drives and ferrets out any and every image, still or video anywhere (you would be amazed at what ends up where after a while - or maybe not).

It allows you to build folders/ albums and all sorts. Just checked it in some more depth (I don't have reason to use it often) and have found an "Export" function which will allow you to transfer bulk selected piccies to a hard drive folder, re- sizing as it does so.

Not going to be too crash hot because of the different aspect ratios but worth giving a try.

Anyone know of a smarter PC way of doing it?


CS

Photoshop Elements has script or automate command (look on the File menu) which will do this for you. You can resize all the files in any folder and choose the desired format/compression. It's a pretty cheap program if you don't already have it (around $80USD?). But companies also used to bundle it with scanners and digital cameras so you might already have a copy on an old CD somewhere.

Thanks Boyd...........
 

Haven't played with it yet, but yes, I do have it (bought it as a bundle with Premier Elements a while ago) but yet another of those pieces of software I just don't have time to play with often.

(I've got one of those machines where if I go "Start" > "Programs", the resultant lists obscure the entire 24" screen! - where does all this stuff come from?)

And you are correct, it does have the batch processing thing available, tho' without further delving can't figure out whether it's going to allow me to specify a pixel size instead of the default "picture size".

Thanks for the heads up!


CS

It should have the option to resize the image, and a checkbox for whether you want to maintain the same proportions (aspect ratio) as the original. If that box is checked then it will calculate the height if you enter the desired width (or vice versa). But if you uncheck the box you can enter any width and height you want. You will need to also check the resample box I believe.

It probably won't matter for your application, but you might want to set the dpi to 72. You can also choose how much JPEG compression to use. I have used this frequently in the past to resize batches of images for web pages and it has always worked very well.