How to Resize Multiple Photos in Photoshop

Posted by narrowband - 05/05/07 at 03:05:00 am

A friend just asked me if I had any software to resize photos, not knowing that Adobe Photoshop could do just that. If you have Photoshop installed, look no further. We’ll do something called ‘Batch Processing’ in Photoshop. It’s the same way how photos on Narrowband.org are watermarked and framed. It’s a pain to manually repeat the same steps for every photo, especially if you have more than 40 photos (in my Siem Reap photo gallery, there’re more 400!).

This tutorial is widely available on the internet, but I’m just going to share it here with Narrowband.org audience (I know for a fact that many among my friends do not know this). Here it is, step-by-step:

Step 1: Open a photo in Photoshop.

Step 2: Create a new Action in your Actions Window. (If you don’t know which is your Actions Window, hit ALT+F9 repeatedly).

Create New Action in Photoshop | Narrowband.org

A New Action window will pop out. Give your new Action a name, and click Record.

Create New Action in Photoshop | Narrowband.org

Step 3: Resize the photo by going to Image -> Image Size

size.gif

In my example, I want to put the photos on my blog. A width of 400 pixels will fit nicely within my blog body. The height value will change according to original proportions if you check “Constrain Proportions”. Click OK.

Step 4: Save the photo in a new folder (create one!) by going to File -> Save As…

Step 5: Close the photo by clicking the ‘X’ button.

Step 6: Stop the Action recording.

Stop Recording | Narrowband.org

Now, you’re ready to repeat the Action you’ve just created and apply it to the other photos.

Step 7: Go to File -> Automate -> Batch…

Batch Processing in Photoshop | Narrowband.org

Pick your Source folder (folder which contains all the photos you want to resize) by clicking Choose…. Specify also your Destination folder in the same way. In the figure above I’m gonna put the resized photos into a new folder called ‘Resized’. Click OK and watch.

There you go, 7 simple steps to save you time and trouble. Batch Processing in Photoshop allows you to record virtually any kind of actions (watermarking, photo-filtering, etc), and have them repeated and applied onto all files within a specified folder.

Note, however, you may need to separate (put into different folders) vertical photos from horizontal photos and create two separate actions for them. Also, since the Actions cannot be undone, I recommend that you always specify a Destination folder.

Have fun!

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20 Comments »

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  1. Hah! This will surely help! Thanks for sharing..

    Comment by Jian — May 5, 2007 #

  2. Wuah.. photoshop master~~

    Comment by Cybie — May 5, 2007 #

  3. hey , like reading your blog , very informative yeah !

    Comment by sansan — May 5, 2007 #

  4. I hope you guys make use of this feature in Photoshop! It’s capable of doing so many things you never imagined it could. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll feel like shrinking every other photo in your harddisk to save up some space (especially if cameras are set to capture images at 3MP or more – each jpeg filesize could well be more than 2MB!). In fact, about 35% of my entire disk space is taken up by jpegs alone.

    IMO, a dimension of 1600 * 1200 pixels for each jpeg is more than enough to be displayed on your monitor screen – Unless you’re using some supersized monitor, or you intend to develop the photo in print.

    Anyway, I’m glad that you guys find this informative :D

    Comment by narrowband — May 5, 2007 #

  5. Wow, you are better in Photoshop than me! When you want to teach me?

    Comment by Kitkat — May 5, 2007 #

  6. thats handy

    Comment by wuching — May 5, 2007 #

  7. Cool tutorial! I’ve not used Photoshop before, maybe I will now.

    Comment by rinnah — May 6, 2007 #

  8. Kitkat – I’m not sure if I know *that* much, but I’ll put on my blog whenever I have something to share! Bookmark me! :p

    I sure hope it is, Wuching!

    Rinnah, I was just from your site! Well, I do everything on Photoshop these days. Try it! :)

    Comment by narrowband — May 6, 2007 #

  9. wow, good, i m looking for this function long time ago!!! :D thanks narrowband! ;)

    Comment by eunice — May 6, 2007 #

  10. Yes yes that’s why you should subscribe to my blog. Hihi…

    Comment by narrowband — May 7, 2007 #

  11. Good one… gonna use it. Any other photoshop tips to share? :P

    Comment by Che-Cheh — May 8, 2007 #

  12. Welps.. You asked for it, so YES!

    Comment by narrowband — May 9, 2007 #

  13. Well this is a great one too! Haha ive always manually resized every photo o_O haha

    Comment by voch — May 9, 2007 #

  14. Hope you’ll try this soon and tell me if it’s useful! :)

    Comment by narrowband — May 9, 2007 #

  15. if i known this earlier i wouldn’t have painstakingly do it one by one… pei man!

    But thanks for the info!

    btw, do you learn how to use photoshop by urself?

    Comment by verbatimcries — August 18, 2007 #

  16. I’m glad you found the feature useful.

    I pick up photoshop on my own, yes. There’re many tutorials on the internet that may be of interest to you. That’s how I learn too. I hope to buy a book on Photoshop when I have enough money.

    Comment by narrowband — August 19, 2007 #

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  18. You just saved me about 15 hours of living… I really appreciate that, since time is rather scarce good in this short life!

    Thanks a bunch, mate!

    Comment by Wouter — October 18, 2008 #

  19. i’ve done this a few times over the past years but never remember how to do it. Yours’ very short and precise.

    thanks for the help!

    Comment by winnie — June 17, 2009 #

  20. Fantastic advice – saved me about 3 hours work!

    Comment by helen — July 31, 2009 #

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