ResizeIt - 3.0.1

After writing my review of ResizeIt's previous update (see on this page), I thought it only fair to contact the developer and notify him about the problems I'd experienced with it. Nobuatsu replied promptly and after we exchanged a couple of quick notes, he was able to identify the source of the issues and correct them: within less than 24 hours, he released a Zip preview to me of the corrected package. Such responsiveness and responsibility by the developer of freeware is not to be lightly dismissed.

I've been using the improved update now -- on a daily basis -- for over two weeks, on two different Mac OS, the Tiger 10.4.11 running on a Powerbook G4 12" aluminium, and on an Airbook running 10.5+; I've used every feature of ResizeIt innumerable times, manipulating images by H/W dimensions, percentage, quality levels, pixel counts, and changing from one format to another; I've used it for single as well as multiple images, then further processed those images for high-quality "digital goods" products via Photoshop.com (the re-birthed Photoshop Express by Adobe), iPhoto, Photobucket, and/or Skitch, and I've been problem-free throughout: no distortions, no major issues. Also, the software once again installs simply into the apps folder and I can park the icon in my dock for quick use.

The only glitch that does occur is a minor one: new images may not initially show up in your item counts, but they always appear within a destination folder. After several uses, even this issue disappears -- it's as though the OS needs some "attitude adjustment" time before auto-adding to a folder's or destination's item count. After you install ResizeIt, you may want to next create a destination folder on your desktop to send your new ResizeIt images to until the item-count issue subsides.

Finally, use common sense: the quality and dimensions of your source image determine the quality and dimension ratio of your Resized image. ResizeIt's purpose is NOT to dramatically transform poor source material into better material. If you start the resizing process with a small, low-resolution image, you will end up with a resized, low-resolution image. If you expect to transform an image from one H/W ratio to another without distorting the image, then you'll experience "pilot error" firsthand in your resulting image.

My apologies to all for being so long in updating my earlier critique of ResizeIt, but to be fair to other VersionTracker subscribers, fellow graphic artists on a limited budget, and the developer, I wanted to first give ResizeIt 3.0.1 (2009-10-11) a strenuous test drive. I did and I am delighted.

BTW, there is an alternative freeware by Jim McGowan, Image Tool, to be found at:

http://www.jimmcgowan.net/Site/ImageTool.html

McGowan's ImageTool is an intriguing app and it has a few more functions than ResizeIt, but the GUI is more complex, and despite "Help" pages offered via the menu bar, it is light on documentation. I could only get it to work up to 10.4.11, not Leopard, and because his website doesn't offer a copyright date or details, I'm guessing the application was last updated in late 2007. I would recommend ImageTool only if you are willing to risk experimenting extensively to discover its uses and you are not a beginner at image processing.

I really want this program to work, because in previous versions I used it a lot

I tried 3.0.1 a couple times and the most recent time worked, but a couple previous ones put distortions in the files that were converted

It seems to be working this time, best when I set the size to 1227. When this works it is great