Recording an action and reducing dpi

Blackwijet

Blackwijet

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Name
Sue
Edit My Images
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I want to record an action to save a each image in a folder to 72dpi but whenever I do this I always get stuck when I run the action at the dialogue box of JPEG options. It gets to JPEG Option sat each image and I have to hit save at each image then it carries on until the next one - what am I doing wrong when I record the action, this happens if I try any action so it must be a setting I'm not changing? Not so bad if its only a few but I've got 500 to process!

alterantively I thought I'd run the Save to Web as an action but I keep getting the mesage "image exceeds thie size Save for Web was designed for you may experience out of memory erros and slow performance" I've not gone any further than that in case I screw something up!

I use Fastone resizer to reduce all the images in actual physical size to 800x600 and to add a water mark but the dpi still stays at the original 300.

Words of one syllable please I'm blonde :D
 
I should probably have added that I'm using CS2 in case that makes any difference!
 
So to clarify, it wont work at all with faststone, but your having trouble doing it with cs2?

I've only ever done one batch process in photoshop, and i seem to remember running into the same issue. Im pretty sure it turned out to be one of the tick box's i hadnt checked when stting up the batch process. Just have a look around and try and see if there is anything to do with saving/save-as/prompt before saving etc.

I would have a look around but i just remembered i reformatted the other day and havnt install PS yet.
 
Last edited:
Hi

Ah - glad it's not just me then! I'm sure it's something to do with the override save as command but even when I tick that it still doesn't seem to work! I'll keep testing!

Thanks!
 
Open an image to record the Action.
Go to your Action Palette and unclick button mode (if in button mode :D)
Click Begin Recording
Now go to Image > Image size and enter the size you want (800 pixels?), set the resolution to 72 and click OK
Sharpen for web however you normally do it
Click on Stop Recording in the Actions Palette

To run the action on a series of images go to File > Scripts > Image processor. Select your folder of images (1), select where you want to save them (2), save as a file type (JPEG) and whatever quality you want and at the bottom of the dialogue box click on Run Action and select the one you have just created.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks Colin - not tried the image processor. Will give it a go!:thumbs:
 
Whooo!

Colin you are a star! thank you that worked perfectly!:thankyou:
 
To be honest, if you are only saving the images for use on the web, unless you are resampling the image, changing the dpi will have no effect on your images - they will still measure 800x600.

Dpi is only of relevance when you are outputting to print.
 
Scarecrow said:
To be honest, if you are only saving the images for use on the web, unless you are resampling the image, changing the dpi will have no effect on your images - they will still measure 800x600.

Dpi is only of relevance when you are outputting to print.
Click to expand...

Had me confused too, why ever change the dpi?:thinking:
 
because these are only for making Jalbum galleries to sell off web and I need smallest file size possible. I found by just reducing image size or making low quality in the jpeg options the files size was still too large and I was using huge amounts of space on my hosting package (I am a bit of a numpty with photoshop and trial and error comes into my calculations an awful lot :D ) .

Plus being told that you only need 72dpi for web display, naturally I keep full size files and dpi for printing the images.
 
I'm not sure what you are doing when you reduce quality, but usually this will make the biggest change to the size of your files.

As an example, both of these images measure 750x500 pixels. The top one was saved with a resolution of 72ppi and the bottom one was saved at 3000ppi. Can you see a difference? No, neither can I.

And because the bottom one was saved at a slightly lower quality, it measures 145kb against the 198kb of the top image.

070.jpg


070a.jpg
 
Blackwijet said:
I found by just reducing image size
Click to expand...
How are you reducing image size? You need to specify the pixel size, not any measurement in length (inches/centimetres). An 800x600 pixel file saved for web will not be very large.


Blackwijet said:
Plus being told that you only need 72dpi for web display
Click to expand...
dpi is irrelevant for web display. All it does is define how large the picture will turn out if you print it. A 720 pixel wide image printed at 72 dpi will be 10" across, and at 300 dpi will be around 2.5" across. On screen, it will display at 720 pixels....
 
As already mentioned, reducing the dpi (or more correctly ppi) will have absolutely no effect on the size or quality of the image.

Try it for yourself and create two identical images at 800x600px (or similar), one set to 1ppi and one set to 1000ppi -They will both appear the same size both physically and on-screen.
 
thanks for the advice, I'm more confused than ever !

if the image is only 72dpi doesn't that mean that if some thieving so and so manages to right click a copy (or whatever method they have used) they won't get much of an image worth having ?
 
Blackwijet said:
if the image is only 72dpi doesn't that mean that if some thieving so and so manages to right click a copy (or whatever method they have used) they won't get much of an image worth having ?
Click to expand...
Nope.. I can edit the dpi on any image you give me. I can change it from 1dpi to 30000 (or more) dpi. All it will do is hint to the program how to print it. The print dialog (or photoshop) will allow me to print it at any size I want though. Try it...

What matters is that anything you save for the web is either watermarked if it is "high" resolution (an 1800 x 1200 image can be printed at 6"x4" at 300 dpi) or of low enough resolution that no one would print it anything above very small (800x600 is 2.33" x 2" at 300 dpi) which is uselsss unless you're doing a 70's retro Polaroid style photo ;)
 
NinetyEight said:
As already mentioned, reducing the dpi (or more correctly ppi) will have absolutely no effect on the size or quality of the image.

Try it for yourself and create two identical images at 800x600px (or similar), one set to 1ppi and one set to 1000ppi -They will both appear the same size both physically and on-screen.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much what I did with the two images of the Countach above, to try and demonstrate this very point. One has been saved as 72dpi resolution, the other as 3000dpi. Both images measure 750x500 pixels, and both appear on this website looking identical.
 
Thanks guys - it has finally sunk in :bonk: and is a bit clearer now, think I know where now I've been going wrong and got hung up on reading that you only need 72dpi for web!
 
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