ImageReady 2 or suggestions??

[ivivi]

After the good input I'm getting from my Fireworks?? thread, I thought I'd throw this one out for input and suggestion.

I make websites, and am now getting into sites with hundreds and hundreds of photos, with thousands more on the horizon.

I have used Xara and XX to optimise pics for some years, but am now looking for an easier way with
-> more color & filter options including descreening
-> side by side original/optimized image comparison
-> real time image download times
-> ideally a mode that shows the picture as it will be seen with the worst screens out there (boy did I get a shock recently when I visited someone with a really crappy graphics card/screen --- my pics were all pixellated!)
-> not too much of a memory hog

While XX does a good job, I find that there are some drawbacks:
- dropping a batch of photos to be done (say 10 -30) into a Xara page makes a huge file and slows things down muchly (although I do like presetting guidelines and using them for manual sizing)
- limitations of the photo adjustment controls and they're so damn small
- somthing where I can adjust the background to spot those annoying white sidebars that so often appear with images
- just too many steps and clicks for processing large batches. I don't want to start hating anything I do on XX.

Have tried 5 or so cheap or freebies and not found what I want.
Read a review on ImageReady2, and it sounds good if you use it on its own without the big Bloat.

FYI I get photos & slides to scan, photo CD's, and then clients send us TIFF's, JPEG's, Kodak's, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

So, XX'ers who optimize large batches of photos ---- what do you use, what do you recommend, and why??

While I know this is a selfish and off-XX thread, I'm hoping that the results will be interesting enough for many XX'ers (and maybe to xara?) that it is accepted. I mean this is the best graphics related forum I've found by far.

Many many thanks for your valued input.

Bill

Stuck in a tropical island paradise!

[ivivi]

After the good input I'm getting from my Fireworks?? thread, I thought I'd throw this one out for input and suggestion.

I make websites, and am now getting into sites with hundreds and hundreds of photos, with thousands more on the horizon.

I have used Xara and XX to optimise pics for some years, but am now looking for an easier way with
-> more color & filter options including descreening
-> side by side original/optimized image comparison
-> real time image download times
-> ideally a mode that shows the picture as it will be seen with the worst screens out there (boy did I get a shock recently when I visited someone with a really crappy graphics card/screen --- my pics were all pixellated!)
-> not too much of a memory hog

While XX does a good job, I find that there are some drawbacks:
- dropping a batch of photos to be done (say 10 -30) into a Xara page makes a huge file and slows things down muchly (although I do like presetting guidelines and using them for manual sizing)
- limitations of the photo adjustment controls and they're so damn small
- somthing where I can adjust the background to spot those annoying white sidebars that so often appear with images
- just too many steps and clicks for processing large batches. I don't want to start hating anything I do on XX.

Have tried 5 or so cheap or freebies and not found what I want.
Read a review on ImageReady2, and it sounds good if you use it on its own without the big Bloat.

FYI I get photos & slides to scan, photo CD's, and then clients send us TIFF's, JPEG's, Kodak's, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

So, XX'ers who optimize large batches of photos ---- what do you use, what do you recommend, and why??

While I know this is a selfish and off-XX thread, I'm hoping that the results will be interesting enough for many XX'ers (and maybe to xara?) that it is accepted. I mean this is the best graphics related forum I've found by far.

Many many thanks for your valued input.

Bill

Stuck in a tropical island paradise!

[roman]

I think you are asking for too much... I find this kind of topic quite anoying since it always ends in a lot of url's and everyones favourites. I'll give you one cool advice which helps quite good for me.

1. D/L (e.g. PS6 / Adobe Image Ready)
2. INSTALL
3. TEST
4. Is it ok? YES ------> keep on using it/buy
NO ------> uninstall

There is no such software which will satisfy me. I don't think there is no such software that will satisfy you either. I'm quite sure.

I've worked with Image ready in mu previous job an all I can say about this kind of software is the same as I said about XARA's export. It's just think twice or even more time, and cut once software. Same with Xara, or Paintshoppro cutter (btw as far as bitmap export is concerned, I use Paint Shop Pro and I won't say it is best, because I don't really care. All I care about is that it's fully compatible with my interface [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]. I use it for most of my bitmap work.

[ivivi]

Thanks Dmagician, but I am an idealist at heart and must believe that if so many people making websites have this problem and so many developers out there know it, then someone is going to eventually make an app that brings the same simplicity and elegance to image optimizing that XX brings to drawing.
James says that "FW3 is a superb tool for image optimisation and batch processing." But again, I've never used MM products and don't know how much of a learning curve there is.
I suppose you're right and I'll end up downloading and trying our another dozen programs this year, but the purpose of this thread is to try to discover what are the best one to D/L and try.

Come on guys, you mostly feel strongly about XX when it comes to graphics creation, and I agree.
Now what programs will bring out that same fervent loaylty when it comes to photo optimization??

Bill

Stuck in a tropical island paradise!

[jon spain]

DeBabeliserPro? The website is www.equilibrium.com
but they don't seem to be developing it amy more. Never mind, version 4.5.1 may do just what you want as it allows batch processing using *.8bf filters (which I think is what you want?). In fact, you can apply series of filters and it's easy once you work through the example.

There's far more to the program than that but this alone made it worth the price for me. I don't use the program for anything else but I know of no other software which is usable for this (don't even mention Adobe PShop6, which is so harrrrd). At the moment, I think theres a $75 rebate but you need to check on that.

Another thing you might like to look at is Tranz32, which I've mentioned before on this forum, because it's so blindingly good (see www.fvs.co.uk) for just $40 (I just use it). This is watermarking but that might also be useful.

I have asked Jasc at least twice to develop ImageRobot to allow external filters into the game but the silence has been deafening.

If anyone knows of any other contenders, please do tell us. On the other hand, if I've misunderstood what you wanted, I'm ever so sorry for placing 2p

Jon

[dk_art]

Much of what you said I can do using my favorite photo editor and pixel-based program ... PhotoImpact ( http://www.ulead.com/pi/features.htm ). It's much more affordable than ImageReady and I like the easy and swift interface (has a bar similar to Xara where the settings on it change depending on the tool you click ...so no tool palettes hanging around the screen). As for photo manipulation, you can even save settings in the "easy palette" from which you can drag settings onto pics or use the batch manager to apply the same photo adjustment to a bunch of open photos.

It has these things you mentioned

1 ... lotsof color & filter options (not sure what descreening is actually ... perhaps I use it and don't realize [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] )
2 ... side by side original/optimized image comparison .... yup
3 ... real time image download times ... yup

I've never heard of anything which can show your last item

Anyway , just my suggestion ... very good for web photos.

David K
www.dkingdesign.com

David K ... www.dkingdesign.com http://www.dkingdesign.com/stuff/xarax/devil.gif

[Peter P.]

Ulead Smartsaver Pro 3?

Peter

[Klaus Nordby]

For me, making Actions in Photoshop (or its equivalent in Picture Publisher) has always done the trick for processing large batches of photos.


K

[ivivi]

Thanks Jon I'll check it out.
David & Peter both recommending different Ulead programs -- interesting company. Their dd menu software was recommended to me on the other thread and it looks really good. Thanks both.
Klaus, I have no doubt that PS can do the job competently, but I really don't want to load it or learn it. And even PS has now added ImageReady as a standalone with newer better code for this specific job.
But I hear that it's possible to run ImageReady2 as a standalone app, which is where this thread started.

Has anyone out there actually used ImageReady 2??

Thanks all,
Bill

Stuck in a tropical island paradise!