Cropping, editing, resizing, and adding text to images are various actions that bloggers and photographers constantly perform. The most popular tools used to perform these actions range from high-performance products like Adobe Photoshop to the free-for-all Paint.NET and GIMP applications. However, the start-up times for these products can waste precious seconds if you only need to perform one action. Here are three great programs for Mac and Windows to resize images on the fly.
Resizr is an online image resizer that does just about everything any desktop image resizer could do. Upload a JPEG file from your computer or provide a link to an image on the web and Resizr will do the heavy lifting. The service automatically keeps the image proportions. All you'll have to do is pick a maximum image width. Carry the easily accessible functionality of Resizr to every webpage you visit with their Firefox extension. We promise you won't regret it.
Shrink O'Matic is a great AIR app for quickly resizing any image. Simply drag and drop an image into the app and Shrink O'Matic will take care of the rest. Resize your images with custom size settings or by ratio. You can also save an image as the original file type or another. Since resizing is made to be quick and easy there are some limitations with this AIR app. For example, it only handles JPEG, PNG, and GIF files. Also, there are no other editing options. This app is all about resizing and does a great job of doing so. Since it's an AIR app, it should work on both Linux and Windows OS.
This tiny Mac app may be small, but it packs quite the punch. ResizeIt is the perfect app for Mac users to quickly resize images and swap file types at any given time. Unlike the drag-and-drop interface of Shrink O'Matic, you're prompted to select your image upon opening ResizeIt. ResizeIt also allows you to rotate images, which Shrink O'Matic doesn't do. However, Windows users won't have to worry about this feature due to Windows built-in image editor. You can also create presets for common actions. Essentially, ResizeIt is a great on the fly image resizer for Mac users.
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I use shink o'matic
Posted by: (jeff)isageek
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September 20, 2008 2:37 PM
for windows xp, there's the image resizer powertoy http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx - quick and painless. not sure about vista.
Posted by: patrick h. lauke | September 20, 2008 2:38 PM
For luddites like me - there's a great Windows XP powertoy for resizing images. Just rt-click on the image file in explorer and pick your size: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
Posted by: Jeff Smith
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September 20, 2008 2:44 PM
Um, Mac OSX has a built-in image editor: Preview. It allows you to resize and rotate images and export as PNG, GIF, JPG. It also lets you deal with PDFs natively too ;)
Posted by: Rick Curran | September 20, 2008 2:45 PM
I'm pretty surprised you don't know our program Shrink Pic - http://www.onthegosoft.com/shrink_pic.htm .
What it does is sit there in the background and automatically resize photos that you email or upload to the web.
It only runs on Windows and is free.
Posted by: Amir Helzer | September 20, 2008 3:43 PM
For Mac-User there's nothing better than ImageWell!
http://xtralean.com/IWOverview.html
Posted by: Ilias Mavroudis | September 20, 2008 3:52 PM
A very usefull tool (everything in the right click on a picture, plus the possibility to save configuration profiles) : VSO Image Resizer.
It can be downloaded for free at : http://www.vso-software.com/products/image_resizer/
Posted by: Joe la Frit | September 20, 2008 3:52 PM
Looking for SangIt for Mac. Is that available?
Posted by: j | September 20, 2008 4:15 PM
Quite instructive article. thx
Posted by: Government Student | September 20, 2008 5:09 PM
Sweet! I have also found that it takes forever to startup PhotoShop and do all that resizing and cropping and saving just to make one resized image. I was thinking about using some server side application to do it on the fly but this seems like a good alternative. I might have to give it a shot
Posted by: Daniel | September 20, 2008 5:35 PM
Heres another web based one
http://www.litmos.com/resizer.aspx
Posted by: Rich | September 20, 2008 6:05 PM
Don't forget pixenate.com people - especially if you're publishing to the web because it's very much WYSIWYG in terms of size...also works well with your flickr assets etc.,
Posted by: fletch | September 20, 2008 6:11 PM
Another fan of Shrink O'Matic here. Easy to use and no hassle, works for me.
Posted by: fershur | September 20, 2008 6:54 PM
QuickThumbnail.com (http://www.quickthumbnail.com/) is a very fast way to resize images online.
Posted by: Veign | September 20, 2008 7:09 PM
I personally use IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com/)for viewing images and resizing. Its light, fast and has a powerful batch processing mode nifty for resizing 100s of pictures together.
Posted by: Rahul Das | September 20, 2008 10:24 PM
here is a speed comparison of picture resizing tools I did few moths ago: http://blog.rw-designer.com/2008/07/speed-comparison-of-10-batch-image-resizers/
Also image quality is mentioned.
Posted by: Vlasta | September 21, 2008 7:53 AM
I have really come to love the quick-editing functionality in XnView. It's possible to crop, resize, adjust image factors such as saturation, hue, etc. and, most remarkably, sharpen the resized image (with Filters, such as Sharpen and the brilliant Enhance Detail filter). It's free, too.
http://www.xnview.com/
Posted by: zephyrboy | September 21, 2008 8:49 AM
Thanks a lot for the tools!
Every week the same problem: How to resize and include a pic to the blog in 10 second without starting photoshop.
I think also in other problem areas more of these "one trick pony" applications will appear.
For example a blooger needs specific tools with only a small number of functions. I do not need word to write a blog post etc. So it would be nice when there would be applications where I could drag & drop functions I really need to the apps and then I get the cutomized e.g. blog application I need. To automate the process "i would like to write a blog post" currently I need a lot of graphic and writing tools, passwords, tag by myself etc...
Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2008 11:48 AM
Shrink O'Matic also works on Mac. All AIR apps work on Mac and Win, as well as Linux (still in beta).
Posted by: Ethan | September 21, 2008 12:42 PM
I think the only one that holds promise for me is the AIR app. The resizr website would be inconvenient.
Here's a post I did on the same topic (Windows Only) which doesn't require any additional software and uses built-in windows capabilities: http://blog.gadodia.net/resize-your-pictures-in-a-snap/
Posted by: Vaibhav | September 24, 2008 2:59 AM
When you upload a photo to www.photie.com the image is instantly and automatically resized into the common sizes. Very useful.
Posted by: Jim | September 25, 2008 3:06 AM