Last month when I helped my friend Tarah scan her old photographs, I had to grapple with a problem in her scanner. The scanner could scan only to the BMP image file formats, and I wanted the photographs in more popular JPEG image format. So everytime, she scanned a photo, I opened the BMP file in MS Ppaint and saved it in the JPEG format. This is when I realized ttat editing multiple image files simultaneously can be an overwhelming task. So I searched the web and found out XNConvert – a powerful batch image processor that tackled our problem in an instant.
The XnConvert is a free batch image processor that can handle all sorts of image operations like resizing, cropping, rotating, changing color depth, adding text, adding dozens of image effects, clearing metadata and adjusting the various parameters of the picture. It can convert your pictures between 500 different types of image formats and can combine 80 different image operations in single step.
The XNConvert package is available both as a setup installer and as a standalone portable program for Windows, Max and Linux. The application works on both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of operating systems. XNConvert works in three steps. In the first step, you have to select the pictures that you want to work with. You can click on Add Files or Add Folder buttons to select your pictures.
For the next step, you have to switch to the Actions tab. Here you can click on the Add Action button and add any action from the drop-down menus. There are tons of actions to choose from from basic image operations to advanced image effects. You can add up to a maximum of 80 actions. A preview of the actions is shown in the right-side panel where you can see the after and before status of the pictures.
After choosing the actions, you may want to switch to the Output tab. Here you can choose the output folder and file renaming options. Here you can also choose the output file format from a huge list of formats. There are many other options like preserving metadata, preserving color profile, preserving file date-time stamps etc.
Finally, you can click on the Convert button to start the batch conversion process. Depending on the number of files and the number of actions, the batch process may take short or long time. I tested XNConvert only with 2 files and it took only 2 seconds to finish the processing of these images.
Conclusion: XNConvert is a very comprehensive, powerful and fast batch image processor. If you have to work with a large set of images in a short duration of time, then you can save your time by using XNConvert. It is cross-platform and works on all the popular operating systems without any problems.
You can download XNConvert from http://www.xnview.com/.