Digital Picture Thumbnailer and Resizer

Adapting the dimensions of several types of images at once to obtain a specific proportion requires specialized software. Add to all that the need for fast processing and LuJoSoft Thumb Creator might be just what you're after.

Building batches of thumbnails quickly is a task most of us come face to face with seldom. When that moment comes, though, the tools to successfully accomplish that job may not be at hand for everyone. Finding the perfect utility is difficult, but getting your hands on a freebie capable of solving many of your problems with no fuss can be quite easygoing.

If all you want is an application to help you load a set of pics and change their size or format without spending time to learn complicated functions, LuJoSoft Thumb Creator can lend a hand. This tool is small and a breeze to use, it doesn't require installation and, best of all, you can have it for free.

You'll probably not fall for its good looks because functionality tends to take over appearance insofar as the GUI is concerned. The operational commands can be accessed effortlessly, without opening complex menus. Also, the configurations you will have to make are very few and simple, even for the less experienced users.

A visible shortcoming you'll undoubtedly come across is related to the resizing of the main window. What normally is a simple procedure for better fitting the application onto the computer screen, proves, in this case, nothing short of a nightmare. If you try to reduce the dimensions, some commands are no longer visible or become superimposed on top of each other, while increasing the window size will shift everything out of place as well. Consequently, the only decent thing you can do is to actually leave everything as it is by default.

Once you start using the application, you'll begin to glimpse the daybreak thanks to the fact that loading and converting the photos is really easy. You have to choose the files, output format and location, as well as the desired size and you're good to go.

Nonetheless, it may not be a glitch-free process. During out tests the utility refused to load a folder containing only pictures and the only workaround was to choose the 'Open File(s)' button and then manually select the files.

Something that is always welcomed when having to deal with many items in a single list is the possibility of picking some and removing them in case they are no longer needed. LuJoSoft Thumb Creator, however, doesn't include this simple feature. You are only given a function that selects all the images and once for unchecking them. You'll also find in there a special button for obliterating the entire contents with one mighty click.

With regard to the supported formats, there's good news. This little tool can handle five of them and they're the most commonly encountered: JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF and TIFF. Another great thing is that you can include all those types in the same batch, thus you won't have to work with a distinct kind of pictures several times in a row. Furthermore, there is an option designed to help you differentiate the thumbnails, namely the possibility to automatically add a prefix to the generated files.

In order to modify the dimensions of the pictures you added to the list, you are faced with two choices. The first one is to manually insert the desired sizes for both height and width, regardless of the overall original look of the photos. The second option is to preserve the aspect ratio and set the value only one of the two dimensions. It's also worth mentioning that the software doesn't offer a preview function for the source images, only at the end of the conversion you will be able to check out the pics.

A few words need to be dedicated to the system usage, because the figures are really interesting in this particular case. The largest of the test batches used consisted of 77 photos in various formats, all weighing in at 105 MB. To turn them into 200 by 200 pixel thumbnails, this tool needed around 25 seconds, but it squeezed some 56% of hard work out of the 1.90 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core CPU. In turn, the memory usage was, to put it lightly, huge. With 2 GB of RAM available, the application constantly yearned for more, peaking at a whopping 391 MB.


The Good

The good support for the most often used graphic file formats coupled with a decent speed in getting the job done score most points for the software. The fact that it comes free of cost plays an important role to help the concept of this tool, bent on simplicity and effectiveness, succeed. It simply brings the basic, necessary functions that work most of the time and can be used by anyone, no advanced skills required.

The Bad

On the downside, there are some evident shortcomings like the interface and window resizing problems you cannot escape. The stress on the system is significant, much more significant than in the case of similar utilities. There are some features lacking from the package like a quality setting for the output and the ability to select and remove specific files from the list.

The Truth

LuJoSoft Thumb Creator has great potential, but in its actual form is less likely to compete and win against many ''opponents'' on the software market. Even though it can work perfectly a few times in a row, the imperfections will eventually surface when you least expect them to and spoil the fun.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: