It is often said that "Necessity is the Mother of Invention". True. True.
Well, I ran out of hard disk space, and so I knocked up this utility to help and now I've got over 2GB back again :-)
Ideal Solution
What I needed was a program that would find big JPEGs and shrink them to optimal size for slideshow viewing.
The Problem
My hard disk is crammed full with high resolution photographs taken over the past few years that me and many others love to watch as the Windows Screen saver. They are all backed-up on CD so I could just delete them to reuse the space, but then they would not be shown on the screen saver and where's the fun in that?
The images are full print quality which is a waste if they are only needed for screen display. So by shrinking the images dimensions there are gains to be had, and ultimately hard disk space to reclaim!
Ideally Suited for making low-res copies of Photo Archives
Once you have burnt directories full of high resolution images to CD/DVD this utility will shrink your pictures to 125 KB on average allowing you to keep a small version on your hard disk for quick review or slide shows.
My Implementation
Contained within the zip file is an EXE that you can drag and drop files and folders onto.
It will process .jpg and .jpeg files, and recursively search directories looking for these file types.
When it finds a JPEG file, it will load it, and if the image's height or width exceeds 1024x1024 it will shrink the image to fit this frame maintaining the aspect ratio of the original so that your images do not get cropped or stretched.
Warning/Disclaimer
This application replaces the existing image files with a reduced version images therefore you WILL lose the print quality and EXIF information of the originals. You should only use this application if you have backups of your original images or do not care about this loss.
This application is provided 'as is' and comes with no warranties or guarentees.
Usage
1. This software requires the Microsoft .Net Framework (version 1.1) available from here (comes as standard with Windows XP)
2. Download this zip file: ImageShrinker.zip (less than 10KB)
3. Using WinZip or other extraction tool, extract the ImageShrinker.exe to a convenient location (onto your desktop)
4. Select the files/folder that you want to shrink in Windows Explorer and drag them onto the ImageShrinker icon (you just extracted) This will launch the application and start processing.
5. Watch as your JPEGs are shrunk before your eyes.
Remember: Always work on backups of your images!
ImageShrinker will recurse sub-directories and will not replace images that have their read-only attribute set.
Setting up the Send To folder
An alternative way to launch ImageShrinker is to create a shortcut to ImageShrinker.exe in your 'Send To' folder so that you can right-mouse menu on any files/folders to process them.
License
This application is freeware, enjoy.
If you have found it useful or would like any changes making, please feel free to add a comment or get in touch privately.
Well, I ran out of hard disk space, and so I knocked up this utility to help and now I've got over 2GB back again :-)
Ideal Solution
What I needed was a program that would find big JPEGs and shrink them to optimal size for slideshow viewing.
The Problem
My hard disk is crammed full with high resolution photographs taken over the past few years that me and many others love to watch as the Windows Screen saver. They are all backed-up on CD so I could just delete them to reuse the space, but then they would not be shown on the screen saver and where's the fun in that?
The images are full print quality which is a waste if they are only needed for screen display. So by shrinking the images dimensions there are gains to be had, and ultimately hard disk space to reclaim!
Ideally Suited for making low-res copies of Photo ArchivesOnce you have burnt directories full of high resolution images to CD/DVD this utility will shrink your pictures to 125 KB on average allowing you to keep a small version on your hard disk for quick review or slide shows.
My Implementation
Contained within the zip file is an EXE that you can drag and drop files and folders onto.
It will process .jpg and .jpeg files, and recursively search directories looking for these file types.
When it finds a JPEG file, it will load it, and if the image's height or width exceeds 1024x1024 it will shrink the image to fit this frame maintaining the aspect ratio of the original so that your images do not get cropped or stretched.
Warning/Disclaimer
This application replaces the existing image files with a reduced version images therefore you WILL lose the print quality and EXIF information of the originals. You should only use this application if you have backups of your original images or do not care about this loss.
This application is provided 'as is' and comes with no warranties or guarentees.
Usage
1. This software requires the Microsoft .Net Framework (version 1.1) available from here (comes as standard with Windows XP)
2. Download this zip file: ImageShrinker.zip (less than 10KB)
3. Using WinZip or other extraction tool, extract the ImageShrinker.exe to a convenient location (onto your desktop)
4. Select the files/folder that you want to shrink in Windows Explorer and drag them onto the ImageShrinker icon (you just extracted) This will launch the application and start processing.
5. Watch as your JPEGs are shrunk before your eyes.
Remember: Always work on backups of your images!
ImageShrinker will recurse sub-directories and will not replace images that have their read-only attribute set.
Setting up the Send To folder
An alternative way to launch ImageShrinker is to create a shortcut to ImageShrinker.exe in your 'Send To' folder so that you can right-mouse menu on any files/folders to process them.
License
This application is freeware, enjoy.
If you have found it useful or would like any changes making, please feel free to add a comment or get in touch privately.
| Of course, if you are loaded and would like to buy me a new hard disk, that would be fine also: |
206 comments,
Software, Monday, August 29, 2005 23:09
