How to Batch Resize Photos With IrfanView

Gone on vacation and have 800 enormous photos from the trip? As much as you probably want all your online pals to see every single exciting photo of your trip, you really don’t want to edit every photo, one by one, so you can upload and then post them your blog or website.

You can resize all your photos, all at once. This is called “batch resizing.” If you own photo-editing software, there’s probably some setting in there that enables you to batch resize your photos. But what if you don’t own fancy software? I’ve got good news for you– you can download the free software program IrfanView. I’ve mentioned Irfanview several times– it’s a marvelous little program. It’s one of the first programs I download when I get a new computer. Irfanview is free to use, and has many options for editing all sorts of media files. You can download IrfanView for free at the IrfanView website.

How to Batch Resize Photos With IrfanView

1. Open IrfanView. Go to “File” in the menu bar. Select “Thumbnails.” This will allow IrfanView to view thumbnail images of your photos.

2. Browse to the folder of photos you want to batch resize. You may have to do some digging around, because IrfanView displays every single file on your computer, in folders! I placed my photos in a file called “My Pics” on my Desktop. You may have placed your photos in a folder somewhere in My Documents. Here’s what you can do–

3. Click the little plus sign (+) next to the “C” drive. This is the main hard drive name for most personal computers.

4. Click the little plus sign (+) next to “Users.” (see screenshot below)

5. Click the little plus sign (+) next to your Windows computer username (mine is Rebecca).

6. Click the little plus sign (+) next to the location of your folder. My folder is on my Desktop. I clicked the little plus sign (+) next to “Desktop,” and I see the folder “My Pics.” Click your folder. When you do, all the photos in that folder will appear in the pane on the right side of the dialog window.

7. Press “CTRL” and “A” on your keyboard to select all photos in that folder. If you are batch resizing only a few photos in the folder, click on each photo while simultaneously holding down the “CTRL” key on the keyboard to select only the photos you click on. In my case, I am going to batch resize all three photos in the My Pics folder. Realize that IrfanView can batch size dozens of photos all at once, but large files may take some time, especially if you have a slow computer. Resizing photos is hard work, so be patient with your computer and IrfanView. Do not rush the process.

8.Go to the menu bar and click “File.” Select “Start batch dialog with selected files.” This will open a new dialog window. It will be filled with a lot of picayune details about what you want to do with these photos. We will go over the relevant decisions, one at a time.

9. There’s a lot we can do with the photos, but all we are going to do is concentrate on four simple things: batch convert the photos to a new size; rename the photos so you don’t lose your originals; batch convert the photos to JPEG format so you can easily upload them to the web; save the photos in a folder so you can find them easily, later. Let’s address the first portion of the dialog window.

10. Under the first section, labeled “Work as,” click the radio button for “Batch conversion – Rename result files.” This will protect your original photos.

11. Under the second section, labeled as “Batch conversion settings,” click on the small arrow to set the output format. Currently, the program is set to output the photos as ECW files. You want to save them as JPEG files. JPEG files are compressed files specifically formatted for computer and online use, and will not gobble up bandwidth.

12. Next, let’s address the size of the new photos. Click the box “Use advanced options {for bulk resize..}” to place a checkmark in it, and to activate the “Advanced” feature. Click on the “Advanced” button.

A new dialog window will appear, asking what size you want to set the photos. The new dialog window presents a flurry of options, but let’s keep this simple. A good size for most computer images (such as travel photos) is 500 pixels wide. Most blog content areas are 500px or so. You can post your photos on your blog or website without having to stretch the photo (making it very blurry) or reduce your photo (making it scrunched up and using precious bandwidth).

So in this dialog window, click the “RESIZE” box to place a checkmark in it. Click the radio button “Set long side to” and type in 500. Make sure the radio dial has “pixels” selected. Click the “OK” button situated on the bottom right side of the window. The window will save your settings, close, and take you back to the batch resize settings window.

13. Under the fourth section, labeled as “Batch rename settings,” select a new name pattern. The default setting is “image###.” This is so that no two images will have the same name (to avoid computer confusion). Make sure the new image name is different from the original image name. The “#” is the generic computer language for a numerical digit. To ensure there are no problems with overwriting files, keep the three ### in the name.

If you want to batch label all photos, click the “Options” button to enter in text of your choice. Remember to retain the ### in the name to avoid overwriting and confusion. So for example, if you visited the zoo and are resizing and renaming the photos, you can click the “Options” button and type in “zoo###.” IrfanView will rename all the photos with “zoo” along with its identifying number (zoo001, zoo002, zoo003, etc). For the sake of this project, I amended mine as “zoo###.” Just type it in under “Name pattern.” Click “OK.”

14. Now go to the fourth section, labeled “Output directory for result files.” Here, IrfanView is asking you where you want to place the new photos.

If you click the button “Use current {‘look in’} directory,” the photos will be saved into the same folder as the originals– in my case, into my My Pics folder. If you don’t want to place your new photos in the same folder, you can click the “Browse” button to place the photos in another folder you have set aside. I’m going to keep it easy, and save the new photos in the same folder as the originals, into My Pics.

Click the button and IrfanView will automatically list the folder location.

Note: It is VERY important that you have told Irfanview to rename the new photos with NEW names (from step #13), or Irfanview will write over (delete and replace) the original photos with the new photo sizes. If you have any hesitation, create a brand new folder with a new name (such as “ZooApril2011″) and save the new photos in that folder.

15. Finally, you can click the “Start Batch” button! Allow IrfanView to resize the photos. If your files are very large or you have many in your batch, this may take a minute or two. Be patient. IrfanView will display a progress window as the photos are resized. When it’s ready, you can click the “Exit” button in that new window.

16. Check for your new photos. Go to the folder where you saved them (from step #14). My new photos labeled “zoo” with their respective numbers are right where I saved them. If you hang your mouse cursor over one of the new photos, you can see the photo is saved as a JPG file and is 500 pixels wide, just as I chose.

Enjoy your new photos!