Preserved Topic: PS Batch Processing

I need to make a whole bunch of thumbnails made. Someone suggested the PS batch proccessing. Anyone know how to use it?

Okay, here's a way to do it:

First you have to be sure all the images you want resized are in the same folder. And then do the following steps:

1. Open one of the images you want to resize in PS.

2. Go to your Actions tab and click on the new button, a window should appear asking you to name the Action you want created. Just accept the defaults. You should now have an action named Action 1. PS then should automatically start recording your actions to Action 1.

3. Resize the image you just opened to the size you want your thumbnails to be.

4. Save and close the image.

5. Press the stop button in the Actions tab to stop recording your actions.

6. Go to File->Automate->Batch. Choose the Action you created. Choose the folder where you put the images in. Then press Ok.

That's pretty much it. Hope it helps. If you're unclear about some parts or need snapshots just ask.

You will prolly want to use File > Automate > Fit Image. Has to do with how the image is resized or something -- it handles dimensions differently. If your images are of varying dimensions, Fit Image does a better job than Image > Image Size. Try it for yourself, or maybe Steve can explain this better.

file---automate---web gallery

Web Gallery makes sense if you want a whole little web site. Skatefx only asked about thumbnails. Remember that the Automate>Batch is only fantastic if the same thing has to be done to every file. Let's say your source images are all identical - rj's approach is great. If you have a mix of horizontal and vertical however, or if your source images vary in size, Warjournal brings up a good point about Fit Image. Let's say you want all your thumbnails to be constrained to no larger than 100 pixels wide or high. In step # 3 of rj's reply, don't simply resize the image; instead, (while the action is still recording) go to File>Automate>Fit Image and set your "no wider than" and "no taller than" constraints.

Otherwise rj has it covered pretty neatly. The first time or two with Actions is complicated but after a while you'll get it. One thing: when you are creating the action, the final step has to be a "save as" to determine file type, jpeg compression, etc. In order to save, you obviously have to save it somewhere. This may not be the somewhere you want the batched files to go when you run the action again next month or whenever, but it's coded into the Action. You get around this by checking the "override save in" check box in the batch dialog.

Also - I always toss out the image I created when recording the Action. Otherwise, when you run the batch and it hits that pre-existing image it can cause the batch to stop rather than overwriting the old image with the new. Make sense? Counds complex but once you see what it can do you'll be jumpin' up and down.

OK, Thanks guys.