Image Packer

Pictures are an important resource, and not just over the web to serve as profile pictures. Depending on the target domain of activity, these might be required to come under different format options or style configurations. In this regard, Image Packer wants to help you create a large picture out of multiple ones, arranged in an order of choice.

One first good thing about it is that it’s portable, meaning, on the one hand, that you can test it from the moment download is done. On the other hand, it’s possible to have it stored on a thumb drive in case you need to use it on multiple computers. The health status of the target PC is not put at risk, because registry entries remain intact in the process.

The visual design might make you feel like you’re using an old program, but this doesn’t make it difficult to use. On the contrary, the window is pretty well-organized, with a large preview area, as well as a side panel to easily toggle functions of interest, while feedback is offered in real-time.

As the name suggests, the application’s core feature is to pack at least two pictures together according to arrangement settings of your choice. This can mean stacking them on top of each other, or one after the other. There’s also an auto-pack option which attempts to figure out the best configuration based on input image size specifications.

Unfortunately, most of the process is automated, with no control over the exact position of the pictures. Spaces in between can be adjusted, but the fill color in the output file is always black, with no option to change it. However, saving a picture is possible under different formats, some of which keep spacing transparent for better editing later on. An XML file is created alongside the target image, and it’s possible to split it.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that Image Packer is a handy application, especially if you want to build a lengthy story based on multiple pictures. Although there’s little control over the exact positioning of pictures, the automated process does the job well, while file support is more than decent.