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A guide to automating photo resizing with Photoshop CS2

This is a simple guide to resize photos with Photoshop CS2. You may (or maynot) find this to come in handy.

Purpose: Resize your photos for sending it over e-mail or when on dial up.
Time: 10 minutes, 3 main steps.
Target Software: Photoshop CS2 (though the process is almost identical with prior versions

CAUTION:Care should be taken to ensure that photo integrity is kept on the first few runs of this script. The script will make a copy of your image, and reduce the resolution of the copy. This process will permanently reduce the printed quality of your photos. You should make a copy of the original (yes, do it NOW) of the photos you intend to modify just incase something wrong happens.

1. Recording the Script:
Photoshop has the ability to record scripts that contain the ‘Actions’ that you intend to use on photos.

1. Start up photoshop, open any image (this will be used to record the action)
2. Click on the Actions pane.
3. Any actions that you create are, by default, kept in the ‘Default Actions’ pane. I like to organize my own actions in my own folder for easier organization. If you wish, click on the folder icon to create your own group to put your actions in.
4. After you are satisfied with creating a group to store your actions in, click on the ‘Create New Action’ button on the ‘Actions’ pane. (See picture above)
5. A new dialog box will appear. Enter the name of your action, and for the Set menu, select the place where you want to store your action (In this example, I’m storing it under ‘My Actions’). See picture at right.
6. Select the image that you opened in step 1 by clicking on it’s titlebar. Next, go to the ‘Image’ menu and select ‘Image Size’
7. A new dialog box appears. Set your resolution to either 72 pixels/inch or 96 pixels/inch. I usually use 96. Notice that the Height and Width of the photo will size accordingly. Then press OK.
8. Go back to the actions pane and press the ‘Stop Playing/Recording’ button (it’s the square one, like the stop button on the VCR).
9. Close the image that you modified. DO NOT save the changes that you just made to the photo.

2. Creating the droplet
Photoshop droplets allow you to build a quick script application that will perform the actions that you specify in a batch mode. Once this droplet is generated, you can drag and drop a single file, or a group of files on to the droplet and it will be processed as specified.

1. From the File menu, select ‘Automate’, then ‘Create Droplet’
2. Under the ‘Save Droplet In’ section, select where to save your droplet and give it a name. I chose to save it onto the Desktop under the name Example.exe
3. Under the ‘Play’ section, select the Set (in this case ‘My Actions’), and the action you want to use (in this case ‘Example Action’). Ensure the checkboxes matches what is shown.
4. Under the ‘Destination’ section, choose ‘Folder’ from the drop down menu and in this example, I’m saving it in to a folder called ‘Example Output’ on my Desktop.
   

   NOTE: DO NOT select the Destination folder as the same as the source folder. The destination folder MUST exist for the script to work.

5. Match up the File Naming sub-section with what is shown on the screen using the drop-down menus. You can replace _sm with anything you want.
6. Click ‘OK’ when you’re ready. Ensure the droplet (Example.exe) was generated on your Desktop (as per this example).

3. Testing the Droplet for the first time
I would recommend that you make a COPY of the photo that you want to resize first for the initial test. If the results are as expected, then just drag those photos to the Droplet as desired.

1. Drag a photo (or a group of photos) onto the droplet icon on your Desktop. Photoshop will open up (if not already open). The file will open along with a JPEG Options dialog box. Set the image Quality to 8 (or whatever you require). Quality 0 is the lowest in quality, and generates the smallest file sizes. Quality 12 is the highest quality and generates the largest files. Click OK. Repeat for any remaining photos.
2. Leave the Format Options as ‘Baseline (”Standard”)’
3. Notice that a smaller version of the photo (both in file size, resolution and dimension) is generated in the droplet’s output folder.

Fin.