Every time when I would like to share some photos online, I will first resize them before uploading to Flickr. Similar to renaming the photos, resizing them is a simple task, but iteratively tedious and time consuming.
Resizing a photo is fine, but what about resizing a batch of 50 photos? Kind of a bored routine task isn’t it?
For this purpose, I love the Image Resizer, one of the useful and free Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP.
Image Resizer is a small utility, which enables Windows XP users to easily resize more than 1 photo in a batch. Assuming you need to resize 50 photos at one go, isn’t it convenient if this tedious task can be automated and completed within 30 seconds?
Just select the photos that you would like to resize, right click, and select Resize Pictures from the context menu. Then, a simple pop-up dialog will be displayed, with options for common sizes – small (640 x 480), medium (800 x 600), large (1024, 768), handheld PC (240 x 320). Advanced options are also available should you need to resize the photos to other alternative sizes.
Based on my finding, the Image Resizer is using JPG compression at 70% quality. In general, the end result still looks good for the purpose of online publishing, but finer details are lost, comparing to higher quality export such as 90%. But, the benefit derived in small physical file size.
I would prefer the tool to feature an advanced option which enables users to specify the export quality.
If you’re looking for a batch photo resizing tool to ease online publishing and sharing of photos, the Image Resizer is definitely a good one, provided if high quality image definition is not your priority.