14 DAY TRIAL // Sharing or uploading photos often implies changing their dimensions in order to meet size or proportion requirements. A simple and portable tool that is designed to do just that is PhotoResizer.
Digital images are some of the most popular file formats currently circulating all over the Internet and among their ranks, there is one filetype that is certainly the most widespread, the all-known JPEG. Hundreds of software tools were made to allow anyone to edit, convert, view, capture or otherwise manage this particular type of graphical document.
Such an utility is PhotoResizer and, as you've probably guessed simply by looking at its name, it's built with a specific purpose in mind. This application will enable you to change the original dimensions of your pictures one at a time or in batches. Best of all, it will do all the hard work without you having to pay anything thanks to the fact that it comes free of cost.
Shipped in a very lightweight package of only 112 KB, this software has yet another ace up its sleeve. It doesn't require installation and, once you remove it, leaves no traces behind on your system, meaning it is portable. All you have to do is unzip the executable and the program will be ready to run right out of the box.
As it happens with many similar utilities, the interface is less appealing and focused only on the functional aspects. Thus, the options are very easily accessible, there are no complex configurations to be made since all is upfront and in plain sight. All it takes is a couple of clicks and you can have a large number of pictures resized to the needed dimensions in seconds.
The feature pack is not impressive and, right off the bat, the fact that it will only output JPG images is a major drawback. It can read and process BMP and PNG files as well, but only to convert them into the aforementioned image type.
To balance this disadvantage, but only to a limited extent, there is a neat option visible in the main window, namely the preview feature. It is a very useful function that will come in very handy, especially when dealing with tens and hundreds of photos, to identify and remove from the list any unwanted items.
Speaking of file handling, it's worth mentioning that PhotoResizer will allow you to discard images from the batch faster than you can add them. For this particular purpose there is a dedicated button that once pressed will erase all the files from the list. Individual removal is also supported, just click on a file and then press 'Delete' on your keyboard to see it vanish.
When it comes to the actual resizing options, you have a couple of choices to make. First of all, you can decide the quality level that ranges from 1 to 100. Right next to this setting is a rather neat feature that once checked will send all the processed files to a ZIP archive in the location you specified. This nifty trick can help you save some valuable space on your hard drive if it becomes cluttered and you need every bit of free space you can get.
The application is capable of changing the dimensions of your images in two ways: by proportion or by pixels. If you opt for the first type of resizing, you will be able to define the percentage for both height and width, whereas if going for the second type, you must manually input the exact size of the pictures. This tool will also offer you the possibility to have your photos scaled and by doing so you will preserve the original aspect, avoiding the ugly stretched look.
While the software is running, if you look at the lower right corner of your screen, in the tray area you will notice the icon for PhotoResizer. Double clicking it will send to tray the utility and this is quite useful because the 'Minimize' and 'Restore' buttons are missing from the GUI.
Another helpful feature to be mentioned here can be found at the bottom of the main window. It is the short summary of the process that informs you if the operation was successful and displays the time it needed to be carried out.
When it comes to the numbers related to the system usage, the application performs fairly decent. During our tests, the software managed to resize at 80% of the original dimension and 100% quality a batch of 29 pictures totaling 21 MB in 6.9 seconds. The stress was mostly on the 3.00 GHz AMD quad-core processor with a usage that peaked at 24%, while the amount of RAM involved reached 88 MB.
The Good
The Bad
The Truth
This article is also available in Spanish: Redimensiona imágenes sobre la marcha
