Posted By Eric Erickson on May 22, 2012 | 1 comment

I personally still use Adobe Photoshop CS3. I’m sure there are some newer bells and whistles that might come in handy at some point, but I’m fond of CS3 – besides I already HAVE it and don’t have to shell for the CS5 🙂

Resize Web Images Photoshop

One of my favorite features in Photoshop is the image resizing feature. Because I primarily work with websites, I need pictures that are quick-loading – especially when there’s a bunch of them – and look decent at web resolution of 72 dpi. Let’s face it, when you’re faced with a boatload of pictures off your fancy 12 MP camera clocking in at MEGABYTES in size and in widths of 3000+ pixels, you probably want to resize them. (Sorry or uneducated web designers/developers – TAKE NOTE! Do NOT use a 3000 pixel plus image and resize it in your img tag to 300 width. I can quickly pick out my next client when I see your image loading up line by line by line. Resize your image before you upload it. Save on web storage space, hosting costs and your visitor’s patience.)

Now, I don’t USE this on a daily basis – usually once or twice per month for massive image resizing. And there’s usually that question in my mind – there are two options – was it the Automate => Batch or the Scripts => Image Processor that I need? You need the Scripts => Image Processor one. And IF you get the wrong one – there really is no way to stop the processing of potentially hundreds of images. I’m hoping by putting this article up, I will remember – “Photoshop resize web images means SCRIPTS!” If you choose the Batch, you end up with a dialog box that you must click (at least the way I have it setup – but let’s face it – there may be a way to set it up so it DOESN’T ask it). But with the stock Scripts => Image Processor, you can do nice simple image resizing with no silly dialogs or questions.

Using the Image Processor Script

I normally just put all my files in one folder in original size. Create another folder at the same level and have the script pop the resized pictures into it on completion. I personally like an 800×600 image for full-size web images at this time. I may turn it up a notch to a 1024×768 format at some point in the future, but I don’t really want the full-size image to pop open and take over the whole screen. So I put in the settings as you can see in the image and give it a quick “Run”. Sit back and watch Photoshop take care of all your image processing!

Now you CAN do fancier stuff in the preferences area in the dialog box – but I don’t normally need that. You can do such things as doing auto color processing or similar stuff. But let me tell you – yesterday having to resize 175 images – and clicking that stupid button every time with no way out other than ending the whole Photoshop.exe process – makes me REALLY want to remember this post!

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