BatchPhoto Pro
Reviewed January, 2008

What’s It Do?

BatchPhoto is a photo manipulation program that makes it easy to touch up, annotate, transform, apply effects, and rename large numbers of photos in a single operation.


Does it do what it Promises?

Reviewer 1: Yes. Batch Photo claims it will enable you to apply selected editing tasks to a group of photos at once, rather than one by one. As long as all the photos require exactly the same selection of editing tasks, the claim is true.

Reviewer 2: BatchPhoto Pro claims to “make it easy to touch-up, annotate, transform, apply effects, and rename hundreds of photos in a single operation.”. It does this with limitations I will describe below. The type of editing tools and the file formats it supports suggest that it is geared more towards the beginner and intermediate photographers than towards the advanced and professionals. The Web site description could be a bit clearer about this.

Reviewer 3: Yes, I found it to work well and be fairly easy to use. The tutorials are helpful in understanding the various functions and how they work. This program uses “Wizards” to walk through the process of working with a batch of photos. A single photo, several photos from a folder, or the entire folder can be loaded. The conventional selections scheme of many windows programs works here too, such as “control-select” or “shift-select”. The wizard then assists in making changes that will be applied to all the photos in the batch. I suggest making a copy of the photos until accustomed to the way the modules interact. I found that sequence is important, in the way the changes will be applied. For example, adding titles or watermarks to the photo while it’s still the original size and then resizing the photos retains huge titles on small photos because the title layer does not shrink.

Reviewer 4: Yes. BatchPhoto Pro is easier to use than I had originally expected. For some reason, my first efforts did not work too well, for I was unable to see the thumbnails of the pictures I had chosen. After several unsuccessful efforts, I left off experimenting with the program for a time. Following a computer crash, I reinstalled the program, and the problem I had originally did not reappear. So the difficulties I had been having may have had more to do with the increasingly unstable condition of my computer than with BatchPhoto Pro itself. As is probably the case of many people, I have an increasing number of "untreated" photos building up in various folders on my computer. So I am finding the batch processing features of this program very useful in trying to impose some order on the scores of pictures that need cleaning up and organizing.

Reviewer 5: Yes. BatchPhoto Pro is an easy-to-use photo editing program that lets you quickly edit and rename several photos at the same time. According to its Web site, the software can annotate, touch-up, transform, and apply effects to batches of folders at once.


Was it easy to install?

Reviewer 1: Reviewer 1: Yes. I installed it twice, and both times the installation was quick and easy. I also appreciated the fact that Batch Photo offers the option of installing a desktop shortcut and/or a Quick Launch icon.

Reviewer 2: Installation was fast and easy. The license agreement is restrictive in allowing installation on only one computer. Many programs are currently permitting installation on multiple PC’s for the same user provided that use in nonconcurrent.

Reviewer 3: Yes, no problems.

Reviewer 4: Yes. It is a standard Windows install. I was able to place the program files and icons in the folders and locations of my choice and launch the program immediately after installation. It comes up with a window about the functionality of the trial version and the time left before registration will be required (30 days). Next window is a Quick Start Guide with some video presentations that will help start using the program. There are also "tips of the day" (which can be toggled on/off) introducing other functions of the program.

Reviewer 5: Yes. This is a very straightforward, simple, and relatively small 5.67 MB download that, even on dial-up, will only take approximately 8 minutes to download and install. It installs quickly using a standard Installation Wizard and places no unnecessary icons on the desktop.


Good Points?

Reviewer 1: Batch Photo Pro offers 39 different filters that enable change of one or more aspects of multiple photos at once. For example, one can easily rename a set of photos, replacing nondescript filenames such as “IMG_0573.jpg,” “IMG_0574.jpg,” etc., with something more meaningful, such as “Bob’s birthday 2007_1,” “Bob’s birthday 2007_2,” etc. Filenames or any other text can be placed and viewed on the photos themselves These can be resized for email and the Web, necessary since photos must be much smaller than the size usually produced by today’s digital cameras. All operations can be performed simultaneously. Another useful operation that can be performed on many photos at once is to rotate them. Whenever I take a photo that is taller than it is wide, it is displayed on my computer as if it’s lying on its side. Batch Photo makes it easy to rotate all these pictures at once. Batch Photo also enables one to tweak aspects of the photos themselves—for example, adjusting the light, the color balance, the sharpness, the contrast, etc. Special effects can be added, such as applying sepia, transforming the photo into a charcoal sketch, making it look like a sculpture, giving it a blurry or hazy appearance, etc.

Reviewer 2: If a multifaceted tool is needed to resize and edit photos for uses such as online auction listings, this program is a good choice. In addition to the image editing features, one can rename files and add text such as the date or copyright notices photos. To do the same set of digital adjustments on a series of similar photographs is the strongest application for this program, provided that one is working in a file format which it supports and the fine control and range of features found in a high-end image editing program are not needed. After selecting the series of images, BatchPhoto Pro displays one representative image to edit and a choice of filters which apply changes to the images. Each change is displayed in a preview of the image until the change is locked in and displayed in the master screen with a before and after image. A particularly nice feature is that before batch processing all the images, one can change the order the filters are applied, and can go back and reset or delete any of the individual filter settings. After the batch has been processed, scrolling through the editing windows allows change of settings to re-run the batch without starting over from scratch. Commonly used settings can be saved for future use.

Reviewer 3: With the advent of digital cameras at affordable prices, many people are taking many more pictures than when we wasted money on film. Unfortunately, with cryptic names such as DCM 74895.jpg makes identification difficult. With BatchPhoto Pro, one can now grab a batch of photos of the last birthday party or vacation trip and rename them as a batch with names like “Dad’s B’day 07-1, Dad’s B’day 07-2, etc. in a sequence that is recognizable. Many other modifications can be made such as resize, crop, adjust, effects, watermarks, flip, and rotate. All these changes can be setup in a “Project” to be used at a later time if this is something done frequently. These “project” settings can be used over and over without needing to redo all the various settings each time.

Reviewer 4: The program can process large sets of photos all at once, with a great variety of effects. I like the ability to rename complete sets of photos, put a date-time stamp on them, and do some of the other mundane tasks that usually have to be applied photo-by-photo. Choosing effects (called "filters") is very intuitive, with easy wizards for each stage of the process and a pair of thumbnails, with "original" and "modified" (before and after) side-by-side showing the effect before actually applying it to the complete batch. One can zoom in or out on the thumbnails and move around within the thumbnail window. This allows focusing the exact area of the photo that will be changed. To help those who may not have too much experience with editing photos, the filters are categorized into Annotate, Touch-Up, Transform and Effects. There are 39 different filters in the current version of the program, some of them quite advanced. Two filters allow an artist to "Watermark" his photos, (useful for copyright purposes, for example). Another is specialized in creating thumbnails. The program works rapidly, although some of the more complex processes, such as transforming the photo into an "Oil Painting", will take quite a bit more time. I also liked the ability to "Save Projects". After developing a set of filters that would likely be reused to reuse, they can be saved as a project and later be opened by clicking on the project file or File Menu, and then selected, modified if appropriate, and processed, all without having to go through the process of setting everything up from scratch. I found little need to contact support, but when I did, they responded quickly, and dealt with the questions I raised courteously and effectively. As regular readers of these reviews may know, I regard support to be a very important part of deciding whether or not to purchase a program. The BatchPhoto Pro people perform well in this instance.

Reviewer 5: I might as well admit right up front that I love this program. Okay, so it is not Adobe Photoshop but neither does it try to be. Its main purpose is not to simply allow editing of images but editing of several images at once with productivity and ease of use in mind. By being able to rename groups of images at one time, it takes, for example, the work out of managing vacation photos. Not only can one rename images and add text, but also create text in any size, font, or color desired and place the text anywhere on the images, even adjusting the transparency of the text. BatchPhoto Pro makes it easy to copy images, resize them, and convert them among popular formats—over 100 formats in fact. Brightness, gamma, tint, and contrast can be adjusted, “noise” reduced and images sharpened. It’s easy to adjust the color, equalize the brightness or the entire image, or convert it to grayscale or sepia tone. Distortions, ripples, lens distortions, or a glass and a water effect can be applied. In fact, there are dozens of other special effects that can be added to photographs, without being - or hiring - a graphic artist. I'm just touching the surface here. There is a plethora of stylizing effects like adding text, half-tone, solarize, blur, and watermarking. Photos can be made to look like an oil painting or a charcoal sketch or cropped, rotated, or flipped, and the program does an excellent and quite intuitive resizing of photos. Best of all, it does this all using the Windows Explorer right-click functionality. Plus, it does things really fast (I processed 15 photos in 4 seconds) with a minimum of computer resources. Throughout the photo editing process, the user is in total control. Whether touching up a group of photos, or applying a series of complex artistic filters, previews are provided as well as side-by-side comparisons with the original. There is a very simple and clean - if a bit Spartan - GUI (Graphic User Interface), again with Wizards to easily and simply guide one through the process. There is a help function from within the program as well as excellent video tutorials on the Web site which can be viewed before purchasing the software. Support is FREE (as are updates) for the life of the program and is available through an online form, email, and telephone; and while there is no turn around time listed, my “test” questions were each answered within 24 hours in a manner that was quite comprehensible—a slight “language” problem notwithstanding. The program is an excellent value at $49.95 and offers a free, although limited 30-day trial period. While there are many competing products on the market at varying prices, I can easily recommend BatchPhoto Pro, if for no other reason than its ease of use.


Weak Points.

Reviewer 1:  I was disappointed that Batch Photo offers no way to correct red eye, a very common problem. I’d love a program that would enable me to eliminate red eye in multiple photos at once, and I was hoping that Batch Photo would be such a program. As far as I can tell, however, it is not; indeed, I could find no mention of red eye in the Help file. Another weakness is that the Select Filter window in the Wizard interface is too small. As a result, many of the features that the interface lists have their descriptions abruptly truncated. For example, the interface says that the Unsharpmask filter “sharpens the photo using an advanced a….” while the Contrast filter “enhances the intensity differences betw….” There’s apparently no way to make the window larger (unlike most windows, where one can just grab and extend the end border).

Batch Photo has a feature called Profiles that consists of one or more actions that can be performed on individual photos or a group. Unfortunately, some of the Profiles provide inadequate specific information about the action to be performed. For example, the Shrink Photos Profile offers three options: resize for auction sale, resize for sending via email, and resize for uploading online. However, they don’t say how much the photos will be reduced in size in each option. As far as I can tell, the Batch Photo interface offers no way to check for updates. This information appears only on the Web site. Moreover, installing a new version requires first uninstalling the older version. Perhaps my biggest reservation about Batch Photo is that I’m not sure how useful it is to perform identical operations on groups of photos. Though I dislike the nondescript filenames my camera provides, I see little point in renaming all four hundred photos from my recent trip as “Trip to Europe 2007.” I want the title to reflect the specific content of each photo—“St. Stephen’s Basilica, Budapest,” for example, or “John and Pat at Notre Dame 2007.” And though some of my photos would benefit from adjusting the color balance, the lighting, the contrast, etc., rarely do several of them need exactly the same adjustments. Thus, Batch Photo does not offer me a satisfactory way to avoid the tedium of renaming and adjusting photos one by one.

Reviewer 2: BatchPhoto Pro provides no support for RAW formats such as Nikon’s NEF format. I would find it helpful if the views of the image previews were larger. They only occupy a small portion of the screen when applying individual filters and this makes it difficult to see the true nature of your changes. This is somewhat offset by the ability to display a magnified view, but the magnified image still occupies the same limited amount of screen area, and thus denies a look at the filter’s effect over a broader area of your image. I would also find it helpful if a detailed description of each filter would be within one click when working with it. There is a one- sentence description of each filter, but from using them in other programs, I know that there are important intricacies and subtleties to them. This lack of descriptive detail means that the novice user will probably not get the same level of results or ease of use as a user who has prior image editing experience. The speed at which the filters effects were applied, either in preview mode or in actually processing the batch images, was slow, usually taking seconds to display. For me, this was not a problem in batch processing images when the program can work in the background while other tasks are performed; however, the slowness did bother me when applying the effects in preview mode. The filter I was happiest to see and most disappointed in its limitations was “Equalize – apply a histogram equalization”. In my use of Adobe Photoshop, the use of histograms is one of the quickest and most powerful ways to set the gamma and the apparent brightness and contrast. In BatchPhoto Pro, the histogram was never visually displayed and there were no adjustments available for the user to control how the histogram equalization was applied. From the results of using this tool, it seems that they picked the settings that display the largest range of brightness to darkness across the range going from absolute white to absolute black. While this is a commonly applied setting, there are times when tweaking or breaking this rule will make the difference between an average image and a great one. I was very disappointed not to have control at this level. I was disappointed in the lack of prominent alerts when there were errors in a large batch processing run. The problem was due to my saving the results in a partition that was almost full and ran out of drive space in the middle of processing. No error message was displayed at the end of the run to indicate that there was a problem, only a message that the batch processing was complete. In re-running the batch, I saw that the on-screen progress report did indicate that the disk writes were failing, but the processing continued without any alerts and with the results not being saved.

Reviewer 3: The only weak point I felt the need for was some sort of an “undo” function. It would be nice to just undo a mistake and go again. I suppose it is easy enough to just dump the output and do it again with the corrections needed.

Reviewer 4: I would have liked to have an "undo" function. Although I was not able to find one, the program does have some safety features built in. One is that as you make a change or set of changes, you can change the file names at the same time. A default seems to be to have the word -effect tagged onto the name of the new files, although that can be set to whatever is desired.. As long as the option "Delete source photo after processing" remains unchecked, the original files will be unchanged.. I asked support about the undo function to the BatchPhoto Pro support and was told that, since the program is processing photos in batches, it does not have an undo function. Changes cannot be reversed so all work should be done from a set of photos copied from the originals. I would suggest that there needs to be a warning right at the beginning that users should work with copies. This may be self-evident, but I confess that it was more good luck than design that I did actually have a backup set, and a warning would have been appreciated. To be fair, checking the box "Delete source photo..." produces a warning and suggestion that originals be backed up.

Reviewer 5: I have been playing with this software for the past three months and have used it for personal photographs as well as more complicated business/professional graphics. I have yet to find a serious flaw or, for the price, any needed major improvement. It does exactly what is says it will do and it does it perfectly. I do have a personal pet peeve with trial periods that have limitations in its features, and would prefer even a shorter trial period to limitations. It is not an expensive software program but neither is it inexpensive, and I think a trial period should allow a potential buyer to try all of its features before purchasing. I would also urge the software developer or company to offer some defined turn around time for support rather than just a “quick as possible” statement as this all too often is the sign of lackadaisical support and a sometimes cavalier attitude to customer service. Still, this seems to be a rock-solid program.


Other Comments?

Reviewer 1:  Batch Photo comes in three versions: Lite, Home, and Pro. The Web site offers a helpful chart that outlines the differences among the three versions. The Software Review Panel tested the Pro, but the less expensive Home version also includes many of the most useful features.

Reviewer 2: An email inquiry to support was answered six days later along with an apology for the lateness due to being out of the office. My question was answered fully.

Reviewer 3: At first, I had problems with the output. I set up a batch of 52 photos to adjust contrast, add watermark from a graphic file I had already, and add the date of this particular batch run. I kept getting a single photo in the output folder. After watching the tutorial again. I realized that I had left out a step. There is a small “+” sign at the end of the text field to set the attribute for the batch to be sequentially numbered. This is a “non-intuitive” step that is easily missed. I tend to judge the “user friendliness” of a program by just using it without too much digging around in help files, included or on line. A program should be a tool that enables you to do work easily, not a chore requiring a master’s level degree of knowledge before it can be useful. A note of warning: I strongly suggest working with copies, not the originals. This is good advice for any photo editing software. Never risk your irreplaceable pictures.

Reviewer 4: Like many, I am great at taking photos and much less great at manipulating them. Most other photo improvement programs that I have previously used can quickly and effectively overwhelm me with their phenomenal but often wildly technical features and functions. However, to make many of my photos worth keeping, many of my snapshots do need some work and editing. BatchPhoto Pro is just the ticket for me. And with the possibility of producing a large number of effects, all quite simply, this is certainly a program well worth serious consideration.

Reviewer 5: One mark of a developer who is serious about his or her program is the history of its development. BatchPhoto Prowas first released as version 1.01 in January of 2006. In the intervening two years, there have been eleven minor or major revisions—nearly one every two months. This is a sign of a developer who is not only conscientious but is proud of his product and wants to continue to try to improve it for its customers. Based on this and my thorough testing of the program, I would strongly recommend it for editing of whether one is a business professional, a home computer user who simply wants to organize family and vacation photos, or a student who wants to collect and manipulate images from the Internet.


Will you continue to use it?

Reviewer 1: I may use it occasionally to rotate or resize groups of photos, but not for much else.

Reviewer 2: Yes., but probably for limited batch processing of online auction images.

Reviewer 3: Yes, this program has proven itself to be quite handy and I’m going to add it to my photo editing toolbox.

Reviewer 4: Yes. It has already been added to the limited list of programs that make up the set of basic programs and utilities to always have available on my computer.

Reviewer 5: Most definitely.

Developer of BatchPhoto Pro responded: I am impressed with the review…really helpful for us to improve our product. There were no major misunderstandings in the way our product worked for reviewers and I respect their point of view.
 

OPERATING SYSTEMS USED IN THIS REVIEW
Windows XP Pro, XP Home

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