[TheForge] OT Question on Photo-Display Software

[Bob Ehrenberger]

Bruce,

When I get a large number on photos to review I use the Photoshop proof
sheet option.  It takes all the pictures in a directory and puts them on a
page like a contact print.  Makes it easy to review all the pictures and
pick the ones I want to use.  You can look at the page in photoshop or print
it out.  If you have too many pictures for one page it creates multiple
pages with about 50 pictures each.

What ever picture editing package you are using should have a similar
feature.

Robert Ehrenberger
Shelbyville, Mo.
eforge at centurytel.net

---Original Message ----
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 08:35:17 -0400
From: "Bruce Freeman" <FREEMAB at pt.fdah.com>
Subject: [TheForge] OT Question on Photo-Display Software

Somehow I've managed to get stuck with writing up my second article in a
couple months on a blacksmithing-related event.  The writing is no
problem. But it seems there's always someone around with a digital
camera snapping pictures.  I used to be able to handle pictures, but now
the damned things are about 2 MB apiece! and It is not only exceedingly
slow to load each one (5-10  sec each, maybe) but I can't display more
than a few at a time.  What this means is that I can't "riffle through
the stack" of photos and pick out those I want to use.  This may sound
trivial, but it's a real headache.

I think the best "fix" would be some software that would pick up a
directory of photos (.jpg) and reduce each one to no more than web-page
quality.  (I don't NEED to see the reflection of the photographer off my
bald head!)  Once this small, software I have would handle a lot of
them, pretty easily.

I could make this conversion one-by-one.  What I was wondering is
whether there's any software that could do it automatically?  Or,
perhaps, there's a better way that I haven't thougth about.  Suggestions
welcome.

As it stands, I'm likely to submit an article completely without photos
because my life is too short to deal with the frustration of handling
these enormous photos.

Bruce
NJ