Images are a massive portion of the content on the Internet. A quick image search from Google can offer hundreds of thousands of results. These images are saved as a certain size but don't automatically translate well to a preview size. This is where the employment of thumbnails began. Thumbnails allow for a compact version of an image to be exhibited without diminishing quality. While this may seem an easy task, merely reducing the size of an image will not produce a thumbnail. Reducing the size of an image will result in loss of resolution so the image may seem blurry or an entire part of the image may be lost. Either way, the resulting quality of the image will be sub-standard and unacceptable to truly display an image.
One technique of developing thumbnails involves using photo editing software. The first step is to develop a copy of the image and then open it within the editing software. Then, apply a filter to the image, such as a blur filter. This helps the image to be clear once it is resized. Then, crop the image to only exhibit the desired portions of the image. The image then needs to be resized to be the proper size of a thumbnail. Lastly, apply a sharpening filter to the image to make it clear. The image can now be stored and used as a thumbnail.
Luckily, a simpler and faster method exists. A quick search for 'Create Thumbnails from Multiple Images' at www.hothotsoftware.com will bring up an amazing program for mass thumbnail creation. This program permits large numbers of thumbnails to be created from numerous image files with just a few mouse clicks. Upon opening the program, you will notice that the entire program operates within a single window, easing any worries of getting lost or confused within the program. The top part of the window is a field that exhibits any image files that you want to convert to thumbnails. Directly below this field is a button marked 'Add File(s)' which allows images to be included in the program. There is also the ability for the software to search for files within a specified folder. The bottom left portion of the window provides information about the format of the thumbnails being produced. There are two variables that may be altered, one involves the quality of the thumbnail and the other alters the size of the thumbnail. Below this is an option to append an alternate file extension to the output thumbnail. Finally, the bottom right of the window has the command to launch the process. After the program begins it will convert your images and show a note when the program is finished.
If you want to learn more about this software, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyoL_2m_sD8. Image resizing can be complicated without the correct software. Utilizing the appropriate program can decrease your production time drastically and allow you to finish more work than imagined.
