You have several photos on your computer, and you have to edit them at once. You can take fifty images of your science project or resize an entire photo album to fit a website. The use of such software as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom will be excessive. In fact, the programs that are installed on your computer are sufficient to perform these actions. You don't have to spend a cent to get pro results.
Despite the lack of attention of students, the Photos application that is included in Windows 10/11 is rather versatile for basic bulk adjustments. People tend to ignore it due to its simplistic appearance, but it offers some useful features. One can select multiple photos using the Control key and clicking on the photos that he wants. Then, he has to right-click on the selected pictures and choose the edit option.
However, there is a more effective way to perform bulk tasks. The Photos app is perfect for one photo, but if you want to crop fifty pictures using the same ratio, you'll be stuck doing it manually for hours. Moreover, this operation would take a lot of time instead of playing Fortnite or preparing for your exams. There should be another way of doing it without writing a computer science dissertation.
The secret way of doing it is the Command Prompt, or CMD window as the young generation prefers. 😎 Do not freak out because this tool reminds the scene from The Matrix. Actually, it is a hidden gem that helps with batch editing of images. In fact, Microsoft provides the user with a tool called ImageMagick if he installs it. There is a more efficient way of doing this operation using PowerShell.
For example, you have got a bunch of high-quality photos with a width of 4000 pixels in your folder. Your professor needs them to be resized to 800 pixels because of the website's requirements. You can open every single photo in the folder, do it manually and save the picture. Or, you can use one line of the code to solve this problem in seconds. It feels magical, but in fact, it is just logical.
Let us examine the PowerShell method in detail because it is fast and free. Firstly, you have to open Start menu and search for the application called PowerShell. Open it as Administrator so it could have access to your folders. Then, use the 'cd' command to navigate to your folder. Just type in the path to your folder after the command and the computer will understand your intention.
The interesting part is the code that actually changes the images. It might seem to be terrifying at first glance, but it is just a combination of symbols that form English. You simply say, "Computer, take every file here and resize it". The computer listens and performs the task in seconds instead of hours.
Here is the specific command that you can paste to your PowerShell immediately. Type the following line to resize all JPG images in your folder to 800 pixels of width and save them: Get-ChildItem *.jpg | ForEach-Object { $image = [System.Drawing.Image]::FromFile($_.FullName); $bitmap = New-Object System.Drawing.Bitmap(800, [int]($image.Height * 800 / $image.Width)); $graphics = [System.Drawing.Graphics]::FromImage($bitmap); $graphics.DrawImage($image, 0, 0, 800, [int]($image.Height * 800 / $image.Width)); $bitmap.Save($_.FullName); $graphics.Dispose(); $bitmap.Dispose(); $image.Dispose() }. This command resizes all the images without distorting.
In case, if you are using Mac, do not worry. The company offers you the similar solution in a hidden program called Preview. This program is mostly used for opening PDF documents, but it can perform the operations with multiple pictures at once. Firstly, you have to select multiple photos in the Finder application, and then press Command-O. Finally, open the Edit menu and select the Select All option and proceed to your resizing.
Preview is rather simple, because you do not have to write any commands. You simply select your images, and then do the action. The drawback is the inability of working with large amount of photos – your computer can freeze when you try to open 500 photos at once. Nevertheless, it still works great if the number of images is around fifty or one hundred.
Let us discuss the question of color correction, because not every photo has to be resized. Perhaps, you have taken photos in the cafeteria with poor lighting and now your food looks like gray and tasteless. You want to change the saturation or brightness of these pictures in bulk. The way to do it depends on your operating system.
Windows Photos offers you the possibility of auto-enhance. The algorithm tries to guess how the photo has to be enhanced, but it can be a bit excessive sometimes. It will be enough for a high school project for sure. All you have to do is select all photos, right-click on them and auto-enhance them at once.
The common pitfall that many students encounter is accidental overwrite of their original files. Imagine that you spend half an hour cropping the images and then notice that you have resized them too much. In fact, if you saved over the originals, it is impossible to return to the previous state and re-do the work. Always make a backup folder of your photos.
The next great free tool that comes from your web browser is Google Photos. You can use it in case of a Chromebook or just prefer to store your data in the cloud. Google Photos allows you to select multiple images and download them in another size. In other words, when you click the Download button, it allows you to resize these pictures.
Of course, reliance on third-party applications causes the installation of unnecessary programs or even bloatware or ads. You want to find the easiest tool of resizing, but you accidentally install the program that hijacks your browser and slows down your computer. Try to stick to the native tools because they make your computer run smoothly.
For those who are curious enough, try out the "Snipping Tool" or "Paint 3D" applications that are available in Windows. They are not perfect for bulk work, but still give you a possibility of individual manipulations. Paint 3D allows you to remove backgrounds from the images easily. It is great if you need to process several images individually while the script processes the rest.
Let us move to the questions regarding the file formats. You may have a bunch of PNG images and HEIC files. The script above works only with JPG images, so you will have to modify the
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