Being, as I am, on the verge of starting a photolog (one of extreme dorkery, might I add); I thought I’d compare the various image–resizing tools at my disposal. Clearly I don’t plan to upload the full 2 megapixel images to my server, so resizing is a must… and not just the thumbnail creation offered by Movable Type through the Image::Magick module. iPhoto has a fairly basic export functionality, nothing exciting, and of course Photoshop Elements (excuse me for not shelling out for full–version Photoshop) has its own batch processing feature, but a shootout between the two has proven most interesting.
First off: Any entries to my photolog would likely be 640 by 480 pixels, so I exported part of my iPhoto library to that size, and batch processed the same images using Photoshop. iPhoto offers no options as to quality, so I had to go with the default, but Photoshop presents you with a slew of controls; I went with High Quality JPG. Not all that surprisingly, Photoshop won on the file size, but the output was of visibly lower quality. Interesting. I pushed on to thumbnails.
This is where the shit really starts flying. A low quality 100 by 75 pixel thumbnail pushed out of Photoshop is a full 72 kilobytes… an astounding figure. iPhoto pushes out noticeably higher–quality thumbnails at one fifth the file size, which pleases me greatly, but is still way too much for a thumbnail. Elsewhere, Image::Magick happily produces a (fairly low quality) thumbnail at 3Kb, and running a photo through Photoshop’s ‘Save for Web’ panel yields a (fairly high quality) thumbnail weighing just 4Kb. I’m stunned. Must I convert these damned photos all by hand? What hath God wraught?
My penchant for laziness leans me towards iPhoto exports: simple, safe, reasonable. My maddening neuroses demand smaller file sizes. It’s a battle I just can’t win… so I’m thinking I might have to kill… everyone.
Posted by Chris Clark on July 3, 2003 at 3:17 AM
During my time with iPhoto (ie– since I bought my camera), I’ve come to wish for a lot of features that just aren’t there. When something boasts an “iTunes–like” interface featuring Albums (something functionally identical to iTunes playlists) I’d like it to also feature iTunes–like Smart Playlists… or Smart Albums, or whatever. It’d be nice to be able to define dynamically–updating albums that contain all my photos of Scotty, or Fiona, or Birthdays, or Birthdays that also feature Fiona in 2003; the data obviously being mined from photo titles, keywords, comments and metadata.
A search bar similar to iTunes’ is obviously needed, since the “Keyword/Search” dialog is a fucking joke, and while I’m at it some quality control in the exporting would be nice, along with customizable HTML generation. Oh yeah, and XML–RPC support so I can post Movable Type photolog entries (customizable) from within iPhoto. Yeah, I know that last bit is asking too much… but a man can dream, can’t he?
Posted by Chris Clark on July 3, 2003 at 4:14 AM
I’ve always been fond of lodging my annual tax return via the tax department’s E–Tax software; it’s a simple question–and–answer based quiz instead of the complicated rigmarole you normally find in tax forms, and it generally means your return will be processed faster (since the monkeys down at the department only have to check your return, instead of checking it, entering it into the computer themselves, then checking it again).
This year, being the first new financial year that I’ve been aboard the Mac OS X train, I thought I’d check if there was a version available for me. Yes, apparently. The software is indeed Mac–compatible… “with suitable Windows Emulator software installed”. Lazy bastards.
Posted by Chris Clark on July 3, 2003 at 9:18 AM
OK kiddies and kiddettes, I’m off to Dwellingup for the weekend: Greg’s Camp 5: Platinum Edition. I’ll be back Monday, if not Sunday due to a total washout. Drinking, campfires, dirt–sledding, you name it. There’ll be plenty of footage on the still cams and the video cameras, so it should all turn out shiny. I’m rambling now, I’d better stop.
Total radio silence commencing… now.
Posted by Chris Clark on July 3, 2003 at 10:49 PM