help - what batch image software?

[ik9000]

Need to compress a load of big jpegs preferably without losing quality of image and ability to zoom in. Is this possible?

Images taken with 10MP camera, file size typically 3.5-4MB each. Need to upload 150 pictures and it's taking forever so wondering if there's a way to speed this up.

[kalniel]

Not without slightly losing image quality. But that said, you may be able to use stronger jpeg compression and not notice the loss in image quality, in which case you can use any number of tools - irfanview, gimp etc. for free batch editing. Lightroom for paid.

[AETAaAS]

Highly recommend XnConvert for this. Free and pretty powerful. You can do a lot as well, resizing and so on if you want to (might help reduce size but will affect your ability to zoom in without pixels becoming a limiting factor, still 10MP gives some leeway). There is an easy slider to control how much compression to attempt with JPG, so you can tweak to your requirements. My use case finds 90 a comfortable zone (once you choose the output format, it allows you to toggle a lot of settings which will affect compression).
http://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/

You can do the same thing in regular XnView in the Batch Convert drop down, but XnConvert is a simplified GUI.

[smargh]

I use Irfanview for batch conversions. There are also some plugins for additional file formats like PDF. The conversion quality is configurable.

Alternatively, sometimes I use ImageMagick's convert.exe - IIRC, it's less awkward to use than Irfanview with regards to scripting into .bat files, and I found that it can handle corrupt tiffs better.

[ik9000]

well I'll be blown. I had software all along. The slightly archaic MS PhotodrawV2! A quick google to get it to work with larger files (thanks office2007 for breaking it in the first place) and all done.

And wow I got 552MB down to 20MB using 50% jpeg compression factor. The fine detail is shot to pieces but they look ok on 17" screen.

35MB total using 20% compression and better zoom is the winner