Here is a excellent utility iam using from a long time for editing the Images i add on my Blog and also for compressing the High Quality Digital Photos i snapped with my Digital Camera. Whenever you take Photographs with a high quality Digital Camera with 8Mp+ more Resolution then the Images would be stored in the Memory Card with atleast 1Mb of size and when you go for the highest quality this can even range to 5/10Mb size each which is really very big size when you have to upload these Photos to Flickr, Email or send to your friends and this is the point when we need a tool for resizing the Photos. FastStone Photo Resizer is a excellent utility which can be downloaded for free of cost to your computer and run.
Once you install the Application the main home screen would show you 2 panels. The Left one is for the location where the images are currently hosted. You need to click on the Drop-Down option and select the drive/folder where the Images are saved ie the Source. This is the section useful for Batch Convert. Once you have selected the Images you need to convert you need to click on the ‘Add’ button listed on the right side panel of the Application. If you want to Convert all the Images in the Source Folder then select the ‘Add All’ button and then proceed to the next step.
First of all you need to Select the Output Folder where the edited, cropped, resized Images would be saved. You can also set the Output Format of the Images which is .JPG by default but if you need any specific format you can set it here. Generally its recommended to change the Output folder from the source folder because if you are not going to Rename the files then the Original Images would be replaced and you cannot recover them.
Next you have a option to Rename the Images which means that you can rename your Images in Bulk with Automatically Numbered Prefix. Example : If you want to rename your Birthday Photos, you can give a entry there as Birthday-Photos-# which means that it would be saved to your PC in a numbered format. You can also specify the Extension Format ie Lower Case or Upper Case like .jpg or .JPG based on your likes.
Next we are going to deal with the most important option here which is the ‘Advanced Option’ which is located on the right panel. Click on it and select the check box to yes to activate the additional options. Then you need to click on the button and you find a new window showing you multiple tabbed panels. The first of this is the Resize Option. When you click on the Checkbox to yes you will get different resizing modes. You can Resize Images based on Pixels, Percentage or based on one side. If you want to just decrease the size of the Images its recommended to go for the Percentage option and enter the % in numerical format to which extent the Image would be shrinked.
If you are looking to Flip or Rotate the Images, the next tab can help you out which is listed as ‘Rotate’. This option is really useful when you have taken photos after rotating the camera and the saved Images come in a flipped format. Hence click on the checkbox and you will have the options to Flip Horizontally, Flip Vertically & Rotate.
Next Advanced option is ‘Crop’ Image which means that you can cut down a portion of a Image automatically and that too in a bulk mode. You can Crop Images based on Pixels, In Pixel Size or In Aspect Ratio.
Add Text is a option which is really useful for people who want to add some text to all the Images, something like ‘All Rights Reserved’ or their Name or their Website URL which are normally found on most Desktop Wallpapers. You can easily Drag and Relocate the area where you want to ‘Add Text’. with a small text editor where you can Specify the Text, Align it if you are adding a small para of text, Setup Position & Add XY Offsets. Also allows you to Add Shadows, Add Background and change Font of the text you are going to add to all the Images.
The next option is ‘Add Watermark’ which allows you to add a small image to all your Images. You would have seen a small logo on most Celebrity Images which are either Website Logo or the Celebrity Name. You have to enter the location where the watermark image is located and also select different options like Shadow, Background, Round, Opacity and Position.
The Final Advanced option is of Adding Border to your Images and giving them a better look. You can Apply different Predefined Frames upto 3 or a Inner Frame to a Image and also add Shadows to your Images easily. If you notice there is a list of options below all the windows which allows you to ‘Save options to File’ which is useful because its going to save all the options you had already selected and can be useful if you want to reapply the same settings to another set of Images.
Download this Application from FastStone.org
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