action to make images of varying size square

[adrian078]

Hi,

I've got a whole load of images of different pixel sizes that I want to batch and make square shape. I want to keep them as big as the small est side of the image will allow. Example: if an image is 2093 x 1573px then I want the square px size to be 1573 x 1573px.

I can easily change this using the image size option and could easily record an action if all the images were the same dimensions, but since all the dimensions vary I don't know how to set up one action to batch them all at once.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[newgravity]

I just ran into something similar, 1200+ images I needed to make 400x400 square for web use. Couldn't find a way for Photoshop alone to do it, but I came up with a workaround with the help of Adobe Bridge (hopefully you have, but if not a trial version should get you by).

First, just open Bridge and navigate to the folder with all of your images. Next, up by your rating star thing in the top right will be your sort options, change that to Sort by Dimensions. This will group all images with a greater vertical dimension first, then all your square ones, then all with a greater horizontal dimension. I'd use the "Essentials" workspace for this btw, that way you can keep an eye on the dimensions in the Metadata palette (lower right) as you scroll through to find where one group ends and the next starts.

From here I just created three new folders on my desktop, Vertical, Square & Horizontal, and copied each group into it's corresponding folder.

You'll have to make a separate action for each folder, but if you have a ton of images, it's still worth it. Also, you may still need to decide on a set size for one of the dimensions.

Here's what my actions looked like:
1. Image Size to change the larger of the dimensions to what I needed (400px)
2. Canvas Size to expand the other dimension out to 400px
3. Save As (out to a new "Finals" folder so I wouldn't have to re-separate if I screwed something up)
4. Close

For the Canvas Size I expanded and left white space—sounds like you're wanting to do the opposite and clip some of the images, but basically the process still applies. Separating your images first will at least make it easier to come up with an couple actions that will do the trick. Hope this helps, good luck!