IrfanView for Batch Image Processing

Posted on Jun 9, 2018

When you’ve got a bunch of images to process, IrfanView makes the process simple and quick. Here’s an example of how to

• auto trim / remove whitespace
• resize images
• optimize JPGs

Open IrfanView and do the following:

1. File > Batch Conversion / Rename
2. Work As: check “Batch Conversions”
3. Look In: Browse to the folder containing all of the images then click “Add All”
4. Batch Conversion Settings: choose “JPG”, click “Options”, for “Save as quality” choose 65, check “Save as progressive JPG”
5. Batch Conversion Settings: click “Advanced”,
   1. check “Auto crop borders”
   2. check “RESIZE”, check “Set new size”, for “Set new size to” enter “750” pixels, check “Don’t enlarge smaller images”
6. Output Directory: create and choose a different directory, e.g.  a subfolder called “processed”
7. Click “Start Batch”

Affordable Hi-Fi Audio Headphone Setup

Posted on Jun 2, 2018

So, I’ve been trying to get more out of my music in terms of sound quality and experience. 6 years ago, I thought $30 Sony in-ear earphones were just as good as $200 earphones. Clearly my ears were not trained to know any better. As time went on, I slowly began to notice the difference between quality speakers and crappy ones. I still wanted earphones for their small size and I eventually settled on the BeatsX (bluetooth) which cost $109. The BeatsX are definitely much better than my $30 Sony earphones. Then, as time went on, I noticed that music played in my car sounded better than my BeatsX. One particular experience is the surround sound feeling you get from music in your car. With 6 separate speakers, the sounds from different instruments would appear to come from different directions in a very harmonious way. Since I wanted that experience at home, my research led me to a sound factor called soundstage. The soundstage is a speaker’s or headphone’s ability to add spatiality to the music you’re listening to. Rtings.com explains soundstage in detail and sorts headphones by soundstage. You can see the explanation and ranking at

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tests/sound-quality/soundstage

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Easily Create Curved Arrows on Mac Using Preview

Posted on May 31, 2018

When you need to annotate a document and explain certain parts of it, using arrows can be very helpful. If you’re on a Mac, adding arrows, both straight and curvy, is very easy using the Preview application. Here’s how to do it

1. Open an image in Preview
2. Open the Toolbar (View > Show Toolbar)
3. Click on the “Sketch” icon (3rd from the left) so that it’s highlighted blue

   

4. Choose a line thickness

   

5. Click and drag to create a curved line with an arrow just as you would with a pen without lifting the pen. This will result in a curved arrow.

   

6. If the curvature doesn’t look right, adjust it by moving the 3 control points.

   

7. Then add some text by clicking on the text tool (last icon with the letter A)

   

   You can also create straight lines by drawing a line. Preview will detect that you are trying to draw a line and make it straight for you.