Batch Processing

[Neil Hunt]

I possibly have a bit of an image management headache on the way. This is new to me but I guess It'll be pretty simple stuff to the more tech literate, so apologies in advance if this should have gone into the beginners section.

I'm looking for the best software combination to process and catalogue upwards of 3,000 images, which come in as hi-res JPEGs opening to between 40 and 70MB. I need to resize each image to at least 2 sizes for printing, anywhere from 20x24 down to 10x8 plus a thumbnail and apply default sharpening by size. According to the aspect ratio and file size I'm thinking in terms of around 9 template sizes to cover virtually everything. Also very occassionally there may be a need for a bit of levels or colour balance adjustment.

The initial thought was just to add something like i-view media pro to CS2, and heard good reviews of Media Pro, but never used it myself so any user feedback welcome, unless anyone would suggest a better combination. PC only though! last but not least something expandable to around 10,000 files with the highest possible level of automation would be ideal, and preferrably all for less than £1,000.

Thanks in advance!

[fridayphoto]

iView Media Pro combined with Photoshop is a great way to catalogue and automate your files.
Plan the different tasks first then build actions for the tasks in Photoshop.
Once you've built the actions you can make them more sophisticated by turning them in to droplets.
The droplets can be used with iView Media Pro's 'Open with' pull down menu as an application.
It's worth spending some time getting to know iView Media Pro so that you can use it to efficiently catalogue your photographs.

[Alaska]

If you would like to separate the functions of processing for cataloging I would suggest trying Google Picasa.  It runs on a Windows system and does a great job at creating a thumbnail and a searchable database on your computer.  

It will also find all of your images on your computer.  Used it to catalog 17,000 images and it took less than 5 minutes.  The best part is that it is 100% free.  It is a 5 meg download.  Also try the "gift cd" option as it makes for a nice CD with a built in auto start.

http://picasa.google.com/

Jim

[Neil Hunt]

Thanks Zeb,

I've heard a lot of good stuff about Media Pro, at the very reasonable price they charge for it, even at UK software rip off prices, I may as well just get it and have a go.

iView Media Pro combined with Photoshop is a great way to catalogue and automate your files.
Plan the different tasks first then build actions for the tasks in Photoshop.
Once you've built the actions you can make them more sophisticated by turning them in to droplets.
The droplets can be used with iView Media Pro's 'Open with' pull down menu as an application.
It's worth spending some time getting to know iView Media Pro so that you can use it to efficiently catalogue your photographs.
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