best software for generating thumbnail images

[kvasir]

hi all

Whats the best way to geberate thumbnail images? I've got around 500 jpegs that I'd like to have a thumbnail image for each but I can't seem to find a decent app that does it.

Thanks

Weed

I use a script to convert my camera's .jpg images to .png icons, script uses the following:
Jhead for stripping the EXIF thumbnail (much quicker if it exists), filecomment for insterting camera info into the filecomment, GFXcon for scaling images that don't have an EXIF thumbnail, PNGTool for converting the EXIF/scaled image to .png icons, DoIcon for changing the icon to a project, with the tool set to multiview, cyberwindow, or whatever, IconHelper has a tttofile program that takes the remaining EXIF information and dumps it into the .jpg files tooltypes (for easy reading).

This is the script:
s:thumbs

echo "Generating EXIF, thumbnail, and file comment script"
list #?.jpg lformat "echo *"stripping EXIF data and thumbnail for %N*"*Njhead -v -nofinfo *"%N*" >*"t:%N.tt*"*njhead -c *"%N*" >*"t:%M.cmt*"*njhead -st *"t:%n*" *"%n*"*nfilecomment *"%N*" <*"t:%M.cmt*"" >ram:s
echo "Generating manual (slow) icon generation script"
list #?.jpg lformat "if not exists *"t:%N*"*Necho *"File T:%N doesnt exist!*"*Necho *"converting to IFF*"*Nnewconvert *"%P%N*" ram:temp.iff*necho *"Scaling..*"*Ngfxcon ram:temp.iff to *"T:%N*" FORMAT ilbm 24BIT BOXFITALL 128 128*Nendif" >>ram:s
echo "Generating thumbnail to icon conversionon script"
list #?.jpg lformat "if not exists *"%N.info*"*Necho *"Creating icon for %N*"*Npngtool *"t:%N*" s=2 *"%N.info*"*Nelse*Necho *"icon for %N already exists*"*nendif" >>ram:s
echo "Generating icon default tool script"
list #?.jpg lformat "if exists *"%N.info*"*Necho *"Changing %N.info default tool and type*"*Ndoicon *"%N.info*" newtype=project*ndoicon *"%N.info*" newdt=sys:utilities/picshow/picshow*Nelse*NEcho *"%N.info doesnt exist!*"*Nendif" >>ram:s
echo "Generating EXIF tooltype insertion script"
list #?.jpg lformat "if exists *"%N.info*"*Necho *"Adding EXIF data to %N*"*Nfiletott *"t:%N.tt*" to *"%N.info*"*Nelse*Necho *"%N.info doest exist!*"*nendif" >>ram:s
echo "Generating cleanup script"
list #?.jpg lformat "echo *"cleaning up after %N*"*Ndelete *"t:%N.tt*"*ndelete *"T:%N*"*ndelete *"t:%M.cmt*"" >>ram:s
echo "Executing final script"
execute ram:s
echo "Finishing cleanup, goodbye and enjoy your icons!"
delete ram:s

Do a "protect s:thumbs +s" on it, and it'll work as a cli command, putting .png icons in whatever directory you happen to be in. Also, I put an IconX script in an AmigaDock with this:

.KEY directory

cd ""
requestchoice "Thumbnail options" " images.*nLeave comments of files?*n(Amiga FS only)" "_Yes|No" >env:thumbopts
if $thumbopts eq "0"
 thumbsnocmt
endif
if $thumbopts eq "1"
 thumbs
endif

This way, I just drag whatever directory I copied my cameras pictures to, and it automagically makes png icon thumbnails out of 'em! :-D

[kvasir]

Thanks for sharing your script with us, that's quite a complex way to get thumbnails. I wonder if the final step could be followed by a conversion to NewIcon format so that the thumbnails would be compatible with lower-end systems that can't display PNG icons. It would be nice if some software could also scale them, darken the second image and add a glow, so they'd be consistant with GlowIcons too.

I'd love to do something like this with all the images in my Pictures drawer. It would be great if it could also update thumbnails of images that have been added and changed.

Apart from this method of converting images to icons, there are quite a few decent photo cataloging programs on the Amiga which display thumnail previews and also offer various file handling operations like move and delete. When I find a few good ones I'll post links to them here.

LOL. Yeah, it is. The weird thing is I had all this stuff on my HDD already. (Oh, I forgot to mention Newconvert, though I can't remember if I used it or not. Think I did, just because GFXcon didn't like some of my jpegs). As for converting them into new/power/original icons, it should just be a case of replacing pngtool with a proggy that converts from datatype to the .info format of your choice. (there's a few on Aminet that do that, haven't been too familiar with it since getting the GFX card installed). The problem with glowicons stuff would be the nature of the icons, the "glow" looks really nice when highlighting a non-rectagle object, or at the very least, highlighting something in a recangle object to contrast agains the background, I'm afraid an automated script would only highlight the borders. I could be wrong on this, too though. (AdPro or Sview5 might have some kind of filter that would work well, though I doubt it. Automating that in even photoshop would be a nightmare)

[kvasir]

Hi, hardly ever post here but I have used PhotoAlbum-see Aminet-for years
and recommend it ! It's shareware and the author is still around and working on it
see here for what is does:
http://home.comcast.net/~rebolcon/pa.html

Thanks, just downloaded it. I'll have to see how that works, might help a bit of a marital dispute here.. (I'm always complaining about my wifes computer dumping "thumbs.db" files all over the fileserver, and she always complainimg about my "img2003135blahblah.jpg.info" files).

(btw, she hates the list smbfs0:#? all p thumbs.db lformat "delete *"%p%n*" force" >ram:s and execute ram:s command I put in the miami startup script that mounts the fileserver, because her icons take longer to load. hehehe)

ps. could just be that AT&T DSL is carp, but that link gave me a DNS error.

[kvasir]

Thanx, that link works. Lots to read there, good distraction from the mountain of boxes I need to unpack... Seems to work OK, though demo limited to grayscale. A bit on the slow side, though (I take oversized 2650x1920 res pics, then crop/scale to need. Usually 800x600 out of pity for some friends who want pics of my daughter, and are still on a dial-up connection. Also helps maintain the illusion of good photography. ;-) ) If there's a way to just decode the EXIF thumbs, I'll definately register it. Looks really really nice!

[kvasir]

He might not do paypal because of this (paypal sometimes not the best thing for vendors), I've seen shareware guys avoid them before because of probs listed on the site. (Not enough coffee yet to recall specific probs, think WHDLoad didn't do it? could be wrong. Best $30 I spent on gaming to date, btw ) Though the prev. link also promotes an alternative. Could be an ad gimmick, to though. In which case, I'd probably avoid the alternative, same reason to avoid politicians due to mud slinging I guess.