Getting To Know Photoshop: Image Processor

In todays tutorial I'll be explaining how to use the image processing script in adobe photoshop CS5. Excellent tips inside to aid your thumbnail creating for images.

What Is The Image Processor?

The Image Processor converts and processes multiple files at once. Its also great for creating a mass of thumbnails from a bunch of high resolution images.

Where Can I Find Such A Tool?

To select the image processor tool go to "File > Scripts > Image Processor".

The Image Processor In Detail

Select the set of images you wish to process, you can either process currently open files or select a folder from your hard drive to process.

Underneath the folder selection process there is a check box which asks if you want to open the first image. In some cases you might want to apply some additional effects to the set of images, ticking this will allow you to make the changes to the first image then photoshop will do the rest applying the same settings to the rest of the images.

The next section (2) is where you want to save the files, you can either save the files in the same folder and keep the folder structure or select another location for your images.

Tip:

If you process the same file multiple times to the same destination, each file is saved with its own file name and not overwritten.

File Types To Process

Unfortunately the image processor only lets you process JPEG, PSD or TFF files. If you want to save the images as a JPEG choose JPEG, you can adjust the quality of the JPEG by entering a number between 1 and 10 inside the quality box just as you normally would if you were saving a JPEG inside of photoshop. Underneath the quality box there is another box called "Convert Profile To sRGB" this simply converts the color profile to sRGB. Make sure that Include ICC Profile is selected if you want to save the profile with the image.

Save as PSD lets you save the files a PSD files if you select "Maximize Compatibility" it will save a composite version of a layered image for applications that can't read layered images.

The last setting is TIFF format, the LZW Compression check box just saves the file using LZW compression scheme.

Photoshop Actions

Within the Image Processor window you also have the ability to run photoshop actions to the images and add copyright information which will be included in the images metadata file.

Tip:

The action set must be loaded in the Actions panel before they appear in these menus.

Use The Image Processor To Make Thumbnails

The main reason i decided to write this article was because you have the ability to make thumbnails from a set of images easily and quickly by using the resize option.

1. Select the destination with all your images inside.

2. Select the output directory for the images to be saved inside.

3. Choose your file type the put a tick inside of the "Resize To Fit" check box. Enter your thumbnail width and height or if you know the width and want the thumbnail to be of the same aspect ration then just enter 9999 for the height.

4. Select run and watch the magic happen.