Save Time Resizing Images on Mac With a Quick Action

[mrnoark]

Articles like this are really useful but, we’ve had Shortcuts app on the Mac for several years already… why are we still relying on Automator? I’m just genuinely curious. What can Automator do that Shortcuts can’t?

Automator has way more functions, like AppleScript, Watch Me Do (action recording) and Folder Actions.

Here’s a MacRumors article to achieve similar functions with Folder Actions.

 

[chars1ub0w]

I haven't been impressed with the output quality on my images so far.

Not looking to blow up pictures, but I often convert from HEIC to JPEG and want to reduce the size a bit. The loss of details is frustrating at times, especially if it is a work related iPhone image that I would like to still be able to read text from, but becomes muddy in the finished product.

Hmm, I wonder if there is a way to specify a JPG quality level?

I see below there is a difference with text between high-quality (level 7) Photoshop reduction and Apple Photos. Here, at 50% reduction. Top is Photoshop. 2nd is Photos.

The original png of the Terminal text is:

 

[leicaman]

I haven't been impressed with the output quality on my images so far.

Not looking to blow up pictures, but I often convert from HEIC to JPEG and want to reduce the size a bit. The loss of details is frustrating at times, especially if it is a work related iPhone image that I would like to still be able to read text from, but becomes muddy in the finished product.

That's because you're converting from a much more efficient compressed format to to a much less efficient one. So you're working against yourself because you're doubling the lowering of quality since HEIF is twice as good as the same size, or half as big as jpeg for the same quality. So you're over-squeezing your photos to get smaller files.

 

[leicaman]

I used to do this stuff for a living. I developed a way of processing photos using AppleScript (in Script DeBugger), FileMaker Pro (mostly for metadata reading and embedding), and Photoshop. I had various media needs. Pictures for web, pictures for videos, pictures for textbooks, and pictures for research projects for our scientist colleagues.

Nothing could touch what you can do with AppleScript and Photoshop. But with great power comes great complexity. Plus AppleScript was a moving target because the language would evolve as new versions of OSX and MacOS came out, made my AppleScripts stop working properly, so I'd have to figure out the problem and rewrite them.. I also used my AppleScripts and Photoshop for embedding metadata into images using FileMaker Pro so that when our half million dollar DAM imported the photos, the metadata would populate all the right fields.

Difficult, but it was fun!

(I didn't even know Automator still works.)

 

[Hank001]

Very useful. For example, 2048px is supposed to be best size to preserve quality for Facebook.

Anything you upload to Facebook is good for Facebook.

 

[Hank001]

That's because you're converting from a much more efficient compressed format to to a much less efficient one. So you're working against yourself because you're doubling the lowering of quality since HEIF is twice as good as the same size, or half as big as jpeg for the same quality. So you're over-squeezing your photos to get smaller files.

Indeed, that's the exact opposite of what one should do! Weird post, that was.

 

[Steakface McToenailtongue]

I don't write this in a mean-spirited way but I do wish articles and even threads like this one would stress the importance of backing up your computer before playing with scripting. One missing slash or period or somesuch and it's off to the races iterating through thousands of files doing irreversible damage.

You know what you're doing and I know what I'm doing but the bane of my existence is people coming to me saying they read something on the internet that said "just do this and that" and then all the files are damaged.

Just food for thought, sorry to derail.

 

[Hank001]

I don't write this in a mean-spirited way but I do wish articles and even threads like this one would stress the importance of backing up your computer before playing with scripting. One missing slash or period or somesuch and it's off to the races iterating through thousands of files doing irreversible damage.

You know what you're doing and I know what I'm doing but the bane of my existence is people coming to me saying they read something on the internet that said "just do this and that" and then all the files are damaged.

Just food for thought, sorry to derail.

No sorry warranted; this is an excellent point! Always try stuff out on a copy, or have proper and tested backups available. Yes, plural, because when something goes awry, you restore your backup, leaving you without a backup.

 

[montuori]

Nothing could touch what you can do with AppleScript and Photoshop. But with great power comes great complexity.

No disagreement there. I still use AppleScript with QLab with some really interesting results. (QLab can execute an AppleScript cue to change its, QLab's, own state. This is more useful than it might at first seem.) But each time I sit down to write a script I have to re-learn at least some part of AS ... it's a weird language.

What I've found is that while LLMs write very usable AS code. I'm not sure if it's because it's a really small language or because it reads like English prose or because the examples it's learned from are reliable. One could imagine that Apple's brand of local AI might be able to use context from installed application dictionaries to provide more targeted solutions (AS, shortcuts, automator flows) which really would be slick.

 

[freezelighter]

Please more of this and less android news.

 

[Musocat]

Excellent stuff! I had an actions folder set up, where I'd drag photos in, they would resize, and then I'd drag them back to their original folder. This just saved me a whole step. I have to resize groups of photos practically every day for work, so I appreciate every bit of convenience on this task.

 

[Beefbowl]

Excellent stuff! I had an actions folder set up, where I'd drag photos in, they would resize, and then I'd drag them back to their original folder. This just saved me a whole step. I have to resize groups of photos practically every day for work, so I appreciate every bit of convenience on this task.

Watched folders is super powerful! I have just started taking advantage of it myself for things like "every time a .webp file is written to ~/Downloads, convert it to .png"

 

[maxoakland]

This is a great tip. I’ve gotten heavily into quick actions and automation on my Mac this year. It saves a lot of time and boredom for repetitive tasks

 

[Moka Akashiya]

Much simplier way is just open all selected images in Preview.app, select all images inside and select resize in menu. It supports batch resizing, i use it everytime

 

[mickobizzle]

.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I haven't been impressed with the output quality on my images so far.

Not looking to blow up pictures, but I often convert from HEIC to JPEG and want to reduce the size a bit. The loss of details is frustrating at times, especially if it is a work related iPhone image that I would like to still be able to read text from, but becomes muddy in the finished product.

You are taking a compressed image file and converting it to another compressed image file. Compressing images means removing lots of image data, so going from one compressed format to another compressed format may well present or exacerbate compression artifacts. Worse, you are going from a good compression methodology (HEIC) to a less good compression methodology (JPEG). Note also that JPEG files can be specified as to size and quality, the differences among which are very substantial.

Remember that compressing images means removing lots of image data. My guess is that either you are A) inappropriately compressing an already compressed file or B) that you have some settings somewhere in your post processing string of actions that reduces the file size (via compression) a lot; or both. No matter how good the compression protocol is (and the protocols including JPEG are very good), if we keep throwing away image data sooner or later we end up with mud.

Try to start with the highest possible original image file type, ideally RAW, and then compress only once to your final desired output form. If you do any image sharpening do it as the final editing step.

 

[Hank001]

You are taking a compressed image file and converting it to another compressed image file. Compressing images means removing lots of image data, so going from one compressed format to another compressed format may well present or exacerbate compression artifacts. Worse, you are going from a good compression methodology (HEIC) to a less good compression methodology (JPEG). Note also that JPEG files can be specified as to size and quality, the differences among which are very substantial.

Remember that compressing images means removing lots of image data. My guess is that either you are A) inappropriately compressing an already compressed file or B) that you have some settings somewhere in your post processing string of actions that reduces the file size (via compression) a lot; or both. No matter how good the compression protocol is (and the protocols including JPEG are very good), if we keep throwing away image data sooner or later we end up with mud.

Try to start with the highest possible original image file type, ideally RAW, and then compress only once to your final desired output form. If you do any image sharpening do it as the final editing step.

Excellent post. Really no idea why the poster was doing this 'no-go' wanton conversion.