Xnview: It's not a paint program, but it can process pictures quick.
Xnview, can batch process a filtering of a rack of files many times faster than photoshop and its batching.
What was going to take 3-4 days auto processing 1million small files in photoshop, I was able to process in a day with xnviews filtering. Changing the color and levels and matrix, and saving out less compressed.
Get into the "batch" section, and switch to the "transformations" tab, and add in any things you want to do , adjust the levels of what you want to do, and save it as a script. That script can then be applied to the processing of a directory. Potentially a quick script transforming of files of the exact same type, into the exact same structure, could be reused by a non-technical person , but script is script, it would have to be created, have files of the same type, the script would have to be selected and run.
For cropping manually mass files, you can use the <- and -> arrows to get to the next file in the directory, so the repetitive process of loading the next file is easier. the crop tool is in the toolbar. Fighting resizing , still exists, they have quick parameters for resizing standard sizes, but choosing forced aspect or allowing off-aspect can not be made all encompasing. Either the crop fits the aspect or you have to off-aspect the resize. Either your resize fits the aspect or it has to be off-aspect, there are no 2 ways about it, that will Keep aspect right
That is the one big issue with crop & Resize, which is where locking the crop aspect (or selection) is very needed.
and these few keys become very usefull. Press [D] Lock the aspect of the selection, then same aspect (as original) resizes will go as planned.
Force selection ratio to be same as image D
Force selection ratio to "Custom" C
Free selection ratio from any restrictions A
Swap selection's height and width TAB
from: http://wiki.xnview.com/index.php/Viewer_Mode_Shortcut_Keys
Set a custom selection aspect then press [C] With that minor addition in know how, you can crop the same as the resize your going to use. (like setting the aspect for selection in photoshop) The resize will go as planned (more often). Loose crops (say 340x120), then locked resizes (say 340x200) dont match. Some way to lock the selection and crop to the aspect of the resize. . To finish at all the same size, I could adjust the "canvas" itself (with letterbox or pillars).
Jpeg compression settings can be sort of "locked" in, which is weird, it just applies the save settings that you have set in the preferances. you have an option to change that parameter, but basically you are not herassed with the compression settings at each save.
With the <- -> next picture feature right there, it asks about saving (or just blind overwrites) with no requesters to fill out. .
That means modifying all the pictures in a directory is so fast , you will want to backup that directory first :-) especially if you have a touchless save going on.
It is still missing a few things, like manual touch-up of parts of the pictures, and the painting aspect of it is a complete waste. It is a viewer, it's a filterer, resizer, cropper, tagger, converter, but not a paint program. It is simple and fast to process masses of files. It is still a tool for work, and not a wizard to step people through.
