Automated picture format.

[Zeiker]

I'm making a slide show, however the pictures are of various aspect ratios, and if left as is would be deformed and cut off the television screen.

what I'm looking for is a fast way to add a matte behind them so that they are all 4:3 and have a 25% of screen size white border. Anyone have any suggestions?

[guns1inger]

photoshop actions ?

What tools do you have at the moment ?
What are you using that is distorting or cropping ?

[kschang]

Irfanview batch mode

[Zeiker]

Not familiar with irfanview, doesn't seem to be in the tool database here, any suggestions where and how to get it?

I'm turning a picture directly into a video mpeg playable on NTSC DVD, 29.97, 720x480, 4:3. The pictures are not 4:3 and thus must be put on a 4:3 background to avoid distortion.

i.e. assume I have a photo that is 600 pixels height, and 400 pixels wide, if I put it directly to a 4:3 video stream most software will force it to fit and distort it. The software and methods I am currently using aren't going to make it a simple process. I have been doing it by using a video screen capture utility and believe me when I tell you what a slow and tedious process it has been.

Any sort of suggestion would be helpful assume I do not have any software picked out to do any of the processing thus far. I have found a method to do it, but altering the pictures one by one is far too time consuming, so I'm looking for any alternative that could be suggested.

[Zeiker]

Found Irfanview v 3.98, can you give me a quick walkthrough of what I'm looking for, it looks awfully feature rich. If it's a long explanation don't overly concern yourself I'll muck about with it until either I find the right functions or determine it's not what I'm looking for.

[kschang]

File / Batch Rename/Conversions, then click on Advanced options, and pick the options you want done. That's pretty much it.

[Zeiker]

Thanks I'll give it a go.

[guns1inger]

M$ Photostory can do the resize/background thing automatically as it creates the slideshow. The downside is that it only ouputs wmv (major oversight).

[DarrellS]

I have templates made up in Photoshop that I use to make poker opponents for a game I have and then I use Irfanview to batch convert the .psd files to jpeg. I can adjust the size of the pictures behind the template to get them to just the right size that I want. The templates are of a predetermined size so that all of the frames are identical. The same effect (without the borders) can be achieved by just pasting photos into a layer and adjusting the size (edit>transform>numeric and experimenting with the numbers until you get the desired effect). It's not fast and easy but you will have total control over the effect that you want.

When it comes to graphics or video editing, that's the whole point of doing it. For me, if all it took was a push of a button and everything would be done for me automatically, I don't think I would want to do it. Editing, like any other art, is a joy. If it wasn't, I'd just pay someone else to do it for me.

Be careful when you convert your files with Irfanview so that you don't overrite the originals. It's best to save the converted files to a different folder.