No way to batch resize photos in Affinity Photo (Mac) yet?

[Ulysses]

I enjoy using Affinity Photo on a Mac (OS X 10.12.6). I frequently need to resize a folder of images and run a small macro to place my studio logo on these lower-resolution images for use by the client, post them to social media, etc. 

 

I downloaded the update for Affinity Photo v1.6.7, and it's great. But is there still no way to run a batch job on a folder containing both landscape and portrait orientation images and end up with all of them properly resized to the same pixel dimensions without distortion?

 

I saw a discussion about a complex macro for this purpose in another thread. However, this essential function should be included as a basic part of Affinity Photo's capabilities, yes? Has anyone had success with this sort of operation? 

 

I really love Affinity Photo and tell all of my pro colleagues about it as a potential replacement for Photoshop, but this simple issue could hold many pros back. Thanks very much for any insight that you developers and experienced users might have. 

[SrPx]

Well...

 

http://www.irfanview.com/

 

https://www.imagemagick.org

 

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp

 

Indeed, I have not used batch conversion in the specific case of XnView MP (but I used the fast viewer, the older classic version (non MP) at a company, is AMAZING), but it has a module for batch conversion, and even there's an utility apart for just doing that, if don't want the whole viewer.  https://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/

 

IrfanView (freeware for non comercial, but can register/donate for commercial) and XnView (idem) are free for non commercial (understood also as commercial the usage at a company, but licenses are different, as always, just check them). But both dirty cheap (12$ donation-register for irfan, 26$ for XnView, if am not wrong, at this moment in Feb 2018).  Imagemagick, whose flexibility and capabilities are close to infinite, instead is fully free, open source.

 

Irfanview has a really easy UI just launch the app and get it working.

IrfanView and XnView share the ability of loading really fast when you want to check images at light speed.  I really like both a lot.

Imagemagick can do so many things that is absolutely crazy. (but is more of a console utility, more for the tech savvy)

IrfanView is Windows only (32 and 64 bits. I (almost) always try to use 64 bits apps, for a bunch of reasons). 

Imagemagick is cross platform: Runs on Linux, Windows, Mac Os X, iOS, Android OS, and others. (need to scroll a lot the download page, lol, the Windows version is almost at the end ) 

XnView runs in Windows, Mac and Linux.

 

With ANY of those (though you might be interested in one or another depending on specific features) I never missed batch conversion / resize / other editing, etc in a 2D package. It is not just a theory, it is for intense and long experience, at work and home. I do work editing a bazillion frames in just a button touch (batch operations), often for editing game animations, of video frames which I exported or plan to later on import in a video app,  or editing a folder of illustrations, processing them for a lot of different tasks, even fields of professional activity: I know this works great no matter which is your 2D main application apart from your helper (batch and other types) utilities

 

Cheers, 

 

 

[Ulysses]

2 hours ago, SrPx said:

http://www.irfanview.com/

 

https://www.imagemagick.org

 

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp

 

Thank you very much for those suggestions, @SrPx.

 

I edited the title and my post to indicate that I am on a Mac. When I was on Windows, I made lots of use of IrfanView — a fantastic little application, especially considering its small footprint. 

 

My goal is to use Affinity Photo as a one-stop-shop replacement for Photoshop if at all possible. And just as Photoshop can take care of this task on its own via an Action, I'm hoping the Affinity Photo developers have motivation to improve this capability within AP so that it can easily care for a folder of photos regardless of their orientation (landscape or portrait). 

[walt.farrell]

15 hours ago, Ulysses said:

Has anyone had success with this sort of operation? 

Yes, I think you can do it using that complex macro you mentioned above. It does have the potential disadvantage that you don't get to choose the resampling method that is used, but you should be able to use it in an Affinity Photo batch job to resize a set of images regardless of their orientation.

I agree that it would be better if Affinity Photo provided that capability as a built-in function, and also if Equations->Distort (used by that macro) provided a way to specify the desired resampling mechanism. But once you install the macro, using it should be about the same as using a Photoshop action, I think.

[Ulysses]

37 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Yes, I think you can do it using that complex macro you mentioned above. It does have the potential disadvantage that you don't get to choose the resampling method that is used, but you should be able to use it in an Affinity Photo batch job to resize a set of images regardless of their orientation.

I agree that it would be better if Affinity Photo provided that capability as a built-in function, and also if Equations->Distort (used by that macro) provided a way to specify the desired resampling mechanism. But once you install the macro, using it should be about the same as using a Photoshop action, I think.

 

I'll take a closer look at that macro. But uggghhhh... you know what I mean? Maybe once installed, it won't be as bad as I think. LOL! Thanks for that link, @walt.farrell. 

 

I really hope the AP developers are reading this. 

[SrPx]

For a bunch of things one goes observing after certain quantity (tho not very long, am relatively new to Affinity forums, but old timer for Serif products usage) of time lurking around, I bet they have someone always (probably not the same person for all areas, cycling)  taking a look of what's posted around here. Fully at 100% over every long wall of text (like the ones I overload the forum with), NOPE, as then when they'd develop, lol... I don't believe they have an army of people for just social media, as huge companies can afford, instead.

 

I know deeply well the Actions + batch operations in Adobe PS. And how incredibly powerful it gets to be for a video editor and a game artist. But....While there are things very advanced that you can only do through internal Photoshop functions (in this case by triggering Actions, linked to the batch operation) there is also stuff that you cannot do with Photoshop and its batch actions, which instead you can very well do with specialized converters, specially ImageMagick and in some aspects, with irfan and xnview.  About the Mac/Windows issue. Please -tho you probably got good note of that- realize that while Irfan is Windows-only, both Imagemagick and XnView count equally with Mac OS versions ! (even linux versions, too . And in the case of Imagemagick, even Android, iOS and other platforms (indeed, is often used as a server library to apply operations dynamically or statically over sever images)) . I mention this not just because they can take any task orientation (portrait, etc) related, and let you chose among different resampling functions (irfan can, too, and some say lanczos, present in Irfan, gives more quality than Photoshop's bicubic. I have not made a scientific test of that) . Probably XnView is more advanced than Irfan, yet being also very user friendly. But to be sincere, have not used XnView for many years (it already supported better transparency, PSDs, etc, than irfan. Maybe irfan loaded faster, less resources usage, etc, felt slightly more snappy to me back then) . Imagemagick is the harder to use for people not happy using a command line tool, but IMO, is by far the most powerful.

 

I'll now will give you my full opinion about the whole matter, I mean, not just an advice in the meantime this feature gets improved or added . It matches what I have been saying - to people that cannot wait to a feature being added to any of the Affinity suite apps - about combining apps (I'm told often that I tend to say same things over time... My grandfather used to say that this is a characteristic of sincere people... ;D. Yet tho I change of opinion when arguments are solid.)  and it is that probably the best solution is in the middle. If you get to be familiar with one of this apps (ie, you could install the ones having a mac version, XnView and Imagemagick , try them and choose) , once the feature gets added to Affinity Photo, you get a 2x combo advantage (euh, I passed too many hours playing Street Figther II in my teen years...;D ) ; As I was saying, there are complex things no macro system would typically do, inside an already complex main 2D package, that you can do instead with specialized batch tools, and viceversa, some macros will be only possible inside A. Photo. My 1 million $ advice : Do get used to both things (well, now only with the utilities and the macros already available) , as is a win-win situation.

 

I keep seeing that in the end, there's some slight resistance to using several UIs and apps inside a project. Working inside software developers you get fully cured from this problem, as at least in graphic production tasks (what the heck, front end "development" (if you can define it so)  is one of the more contest changing environments I've suffered) you get through your work day changing among apps, tools, utilities, engine previewers, texturing tools,  test systems, and coffee makers...But once one gets deeply used to that, the sky is the limit. You surely do know all this very well. My only point here is that having used the macro-batch-actions system of PS, I do know well that often it doesn't cut it as well as certain really advanced conversion features in those specialized tools. So, it doesn't hurt to try those free tools (in your case, one fully free, the other dirty cheap if used commercially (but can play with it for years freely at home. And 26 bucks do not make any one poorer ;).... ))

 

I yet to work at a place (will be probably soon working yet again inside another developer (if I get to convince certain ppl, hehe), seems is my destiny, lol)  where you don't need like water all these context changes and not needing to use this arsenal or perfect orchestra of different software tools. And you get workflows working as a perfect machine, so is not sth crazy, at all.   

 

Anyway, all macro improvements are welcome (IMO, there are things that definitely get priority right now, even by what is the definition of priority in a software application... I mean, wouldn't be strange that those things get solved first.... ) as they are extremely useful. But i wouldn't fix them before some core matters are attended. (the apps do not have show stopping issues, but definitely things to attend a bit more, and it seems by every sign and post that hey are working very heavily on all that, right now.)

 

 

[Ulysses]

@SrPx I know what you mean. When I worked in IT many years ago, I was accustomed to using all sorts of additional tools beyond my core tools. It was simply necessity. And as I make the effort to move away from Photoshop, perhaps this will become a necessity again. But I've worked for many years now to develop a tighter, smoother workflow with less reliance upon lots of different applications. What I am looking to accomplish isn't very complicated at all. So I sincerely hope the developers give it some resources sooner than later even if it is not the highest priority. It's more a matter of basic workflow for most professional photographers as well as other media pros. 

 

Thank you once again for the suggestions. I will take a look first at ImageMagick – even though I'm not looking forward to the old days of command line tools. 

[SrPx]

Fair enough (I'll really welcome any macros/batch development, too, but I am way more worried about the brush system (also because there are masses of angry ppl about it...IMO a bit too much as APhoto is not a painter), and polish some details in file exports, pdf, etc. Those are really really core to be considered pro tools, so it makes a lot of sense the priority there. ) 

 

If you get stuck with something with imagemagick  or XnView, you could let us know here. I might know the solution/tip, (or not, if is sth I have not specifically dealt with).