• Choose a category
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• Classic-Fiction

2. Open the Batch Conversion dialog box by choosing File⇒Batch Conversion — Rename.

This Batch Conversion dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 6-17.

3. Find your original images by navigating the directory window in the Batch Conversion dialog box.

Figure 6-17: IrfanView has a powerful batch conversion tool.

4. Copy your images to the Input Files workspace by clicking the Add button.

Select the images you want to modify and press the Add button. The selected image names are copied to the Input Files workspace.

5. Specify the output directory.

If you want to put the new images in the same directory as the input files, click the Use This Directory as Output button. If not, choose the directory where you want the new images to go.

6. In the Work As box, choose Batch Conversion — Rename Result Files.

You can use this setting to rename your files, to do other conversions, or both. Generally, I recommend both.

7. Set the output format to the format you want.

For photos, you probably want JPG format.

8. Change renaming settings in the Batch Rename Settings area if you want to specify some other naming convention for your images.

By default, each image is called image### where ### is a three-digit number. They are numbered according to the listing in the Input Files workspace. You can use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to change the order images appear in this listing.

9. Click the Set Advanced Options button to change the image size.

This displays the Settings for All Images dialog box, as shown in Figure 6-18.

Figure 6-18: Use the Settings for All Images dialog box to resize images in batch mode.

10. Specify the new size of the image in the Resize area.

Several common sizes are preset. If you want another size, use the given options. I set my size to 320 x 240.

11. Close the Settings for All Images dialog box and then, in the Batch Conversion dialog box, press the Start button.

In a few seconds, the new images are created.

Using Images as Links

Sometimes, you’ll want to use images as links. For example, look at thumbs.html, as shown in Figure 6-19.

This page uses thumbnail images. A thumbnail is a small version of the full-size image. The thumbnail is embedded, and the user clicks it to see the full-size version in the browser.

Thumbnails are good because they allow the user to preview a small version of each image without having to wait for the full-size versions to be rendered on-screen. If the user wants to see a complete image, he can click the thumbnail to view it on its own page.

Figure 6-19: Small images can be links to larger images.

Creating thumbnail images

Thumbnails are simply scaled-down versions of ordinary images. Because this process is fairly common, IrfanView comes with a wonderful tool to automate thumbnail creation. To make a batch of thumbnails in IrfanView

1. Organize your images.

Any page that has a large number of images can get confusing. I prefer to organize everything that will be used by a particular page into its own directory. I created a thumbs directory that contains thumbs.html, all the full-size images, and all the thumbnails. I usually don’t find it helpful to have separate directories for images. It’s more helpful to organize by project or page than by media type.

2. Rename images, if necessary.

Images that come from a digital camera or scanner often have cryptic names. Your life is a lot easier if your image names are easier to understand. I named my images ship_1.jpg, ship_2.jpg, and ship_3.jpg.

3. Make any changes you want to the originals before you make the thumbnails.

Use the tips described in this chapter to clean up or improve your images before you make thumbnails, or the thumbnails won’t represent the actual images accurately.

4. Open the IrfanView Thumbnails tool by choosing File⇒Thumbnails or by pressing the T key.

The Thumbnails tool appears, as shown in Figure 6-20.

5. Select the thumbnails you want to create.

Use the mouse to select