Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Image resize and export

As a photographer I am always looking for ways to speed up my work flow.  One thing that has bugged me for a long time has been exporting and resizing images.  Lightroom was slow and Luminar (which I currently use) is even slower.  If you need to export and resize 1000+ images be prepared to wait.

I say wait no more...  In my travels I have found a much better solution that even works with raw files direct from my camera.  The proviso is that you are using Windows 10 1903+ and have the "Raw Image Extension" installed.  This can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store here https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/p/raw-image-extension/9nctdw2w1bh8?activetab=pivot:overviewtab and is an official  free Microsoft extension.  This works flawlessly with both my Olympus *.orf files and my Nikon *.nef files.  There are some raw formats that are known not to work.  Either way it is well worth installing to see if it works for you.  You can tell it works by simply opening any raw image and if it displays in photos, then this process will work for you.

The other thing that you will need is "Image Resizer" by Brice Lambson.  You can get this from here http://www.bricelam.net/ImageResizer/.  Image resizer is a recognised Microsoft power tool.  Go ahead.  Download and install it now.  Image resizer is awesome.  You can resize and rename files in batches by simply right clicking on your target files.  Even better you can configure standard sizes and save the configuration for later use.  In a real example for me the scavenger hunt has asked for all of the submitted to be a maximum of 2048 pixels on the long edge.  They also need to be named in a particular format.  I simply created a preset and the images were resized and renamed with very little effort.  To ensure the size is 2048 simply make both x and y dimensions 2048.

Image resizer is so fast I was able to export 100 images in less than two minutes.  Compared to 30 minutes with Luminar.  This was over a wifi connection.  Wi
th the other packages on WiFi the time balloons out to hours. 

If you want to export a small number or thousands of images.  You want this.

Enjoy


Empty

Empty office space on Spring street Melbourne


On this day - 3rd of March

last year it was all about sunflowers and still life