ResizeIt - a Fantastic Image Resizer/Converter for Mac

One of the aspects of submitting software reviews to Associated Content that has long bothered me is putting together screen shots. Not because taking a screen shot is hard, because it isn't. And not because the process with Associated Content is difficult, because it isn't (although I wish they'd accept images in PNG format!), but because it's a bit tedious.

Especially on a Mac. Why? First of all, is because the Mac, by default, takes screen captures in PNG format. PNG stands for Portable Network Graphic, and is typically a bit more efficient than JPG (not to mention being completely unencumbered by patents, which JPG can't say). So, even if I have my screen shot perfectly framed and cropped, on a Mac that screen shot is in PNG format, so I still need to convert it to JPG.

That's not too difficult. Simply open up the graphic, click "Save As," and pick the format I want... simple.

But time consuming! Not so bad, really, if I'm only submitting one or two screen shots, but if I'm submitting an article with the maximum five screen shots, and I'm submitting more than one article at a time, that can be a lot of images.

So I'm happy to report that I stumbled on a great image utility for Macs that I think is going to make my life a whole lot simpler. The name of this application is ResizeIt. As you can guess from the name, the main function of ResizeIt is to resize images. And it does this great. Simply drag an image on to the ResizeIt icon (or open ResizeIt and you'll be asked to select an image to change). You can resize the image by giving exact pixel dimensions, a maximum size, or by percentage.

But you can also choose a different format. ResizeIt is able to convert to JPG, PNG, TIFF and GIF, all with the click of the button. And this is great, so what I've realized is that I can simply use ResizeIt - not to resize anything - but as a format converter.

How do I do this?

Simple. In the areas where I could pick a way to resize my images, I simply leave them all at 100 percent. Then I click on the format dropdown menu and select JPG. And here's the nice part. I now save this as a preset, so in the future I just drag and drop, hit return, and I'm all set!