IN THE ZONE
With Hobby Electronics and Programming


Index   Home


Enjoy Photography More With This Free Program

August 17, 2018  By BOB SCHOENING



Not that long ago I bought a Canon a6000 mirrorless camera. It came at reduced price because it was superceded by the a6300 and a6500, both of which now command a premium buck. It was a good deal, and as far as I can tell, the image quality for stills (not movies) is pretty much identical among the three.

Anyhow, it takes great pictures, but they're really big; one-to-three photos is about all you can attach to an email.1 That's a problem. Much of the joy of photography (for me) is sharing my work with others. But far-flung friends and family can only ever see email attachments. (Yes, iPhone cameras have their place, but they also have their limitations.) I've used Microsoft Paint to shrink photos one at a time, but it's a tedious and time consuming task when you have dozens to hundreds to process.

So I wrote a little script called image.py that batch-shrinks whole directories of pictures down to almost any size you want in seconds. Very convenient for emailing multiple images to friends and family. And because smaller pictures load faster, people are more willing to look at your attachments. (I was reminded of this by my daughter. Ahem.)

A second feature lets you convert color images to black-and-white for you Ansel Adams fans. (The a6000 does allow you to shoot black-and-white.)

A third feature lets you add a text watermark in the upper left corner of your image. There you can print your name, your website, your company name, or any other information describing the place or event. Watermarks also discourage unauthorized reuse of your images.

You can get the program from the GitHub tab on my Home page. I hope you find it useful.



1 Gmail allows 25MB of attachments. A single 6000 x 4000 image from a 24MB camera can come close to that, depending on format and image detail.