Automated (Batch)

    Want to make this even easier? (Works best with raw files, read on to find out why.) Now that you have the action installed, you don’t even have to have Photoshop running. Using “Adobe Bridge” (it’s included with Photoshop back through the original CS version - you do use Bridge to navigate/browse/manage your images, don’t you?), you can apply this action to as many images as you want to all in basically one click.

    With “Adobe Bridge CS5” open and running, navigate/browse your way to where your images are stored that you want to use. Assuming that you have more than one in the same folder, Ctrl click on the ones you want to resize (so they are highlighted). If the images are raw files, do your raw work before you resize. If you have to work on them in Photoshop proper, do that now also. This resize action will work on raw files, psd files with layers, tiffs and of course good ‘ol jpegs.

    On the Bridge top menu bar, click on “Tools” then “Photoshop” then “Batch” (don’t get this “Batch” confused with “Batch Rename…”). (I know this will work on CS3-CS5, I currently don’t have an older version of the program installed to check this out.) When you click on “Batch”, it will launch Photoshop if it is not already running and a “Batch” dialog box will appear.

    In the “Play” section, use the drop-down menu in the “Set:” box and in our case choose “OCPA 768”. Since there is only one action in our set (action folder), the next drop-down (“Action:”), it is automatically there for us. “Source:” should automatically be set for “Bridge” (since that is where we launched this from). For this action, I would uncheck any of the next four check boxes. Now in the “Destination:” section, this is where we want our resized images to go. I normally select “Folder”, then using the “Choose…” button, navigate/browse to where I want to save these resized images. Uncheck “Override Action ‘Save As’ Commands” as there are no “Save As” commands to worry about in this particular action.

    In the “File Naming” section, this is where you can rename the image files but because, due to each competition having a unique naming convention and each image has a different title, I tend not to use this here (plus I am saving to a new folder just for these competition images so I don't have to worry about file duplication). So I leave it in defaults: first box “Document Name” and the box to the right of it, “extension”. The rest of the boxes I leave blank and the other boxes wherever they default to. Go ahead and click “OK”. Zip-zap-boom, your images are resized.

    If you are resizing any raw files you will get a lot of options. First, the Adobe Camera Raw dialog box will appear. Assuming that you have already done all your enhancements/corrections/etc. click “Open Image” (or you could do more tweaks if needed). Then when the “Save As” dialog appears, you can now give it a new name according to the competition’s file naming convention. Don’t change the save as destination, it will be in conflict with the action - but it should know where to go because the action told it where. And click “Save”. Next the “JPEG Options” dialog pops up. You can now decide on the compression/quality as discussed earlier in the “manual” method. Go ahead and click “OK”.

    This “Batch” stuff is really slick with raw images/files that don't need and additional work in Photoshop proper since you have the chance to rename and decide on the jpeg compression/quality. If you run this action on psd files, it resizes them, but keeps it as a psd file with all of your layers intact. Meaning you need to open the file, save as a jpeg (include rename) and choose the compression/quality. Tiff’s to will need to go through the same process. And unfortunately if you run this on jpegs, you don't get to choose compression and if you open and resave the jpeg with lower compression/quality, it may not be as good as if you opened the original jpeg into Photoshop and run the resize action individually instead of in a batch. Bottom line, for tiffs, psds and jpegs - I’d run the action individually instead of in a batch (exception, for applications/uses where I don’t care about the jpeg compression being under a certain amount). But our next program has a way to resize, convert to jpeg and control the compression all in one dialog box.

    Personal Observation: for actually one of the simplest ways to resize images with the most control, this explanation on CS5 sure took up a lot of page space.

Copyright © 2011 Oregon Coast Photographers' Association, Inc. All rights reserved.
Version: 1.0
Revised: March 25, 2011