When you want to resize photos in XnView, there are a few things you need to know. First, the photo size you want to resize must be set before you start. Second, the number of photos in the group must also be set before you start resizing. Finally, the width and height of the resized photos must be set as well. To resize photos using XnView:

  1. Open XnView and create a new window by clicking on the green button at the bottom of the main window.
  2. In the new window, select Photo Gallery from the left side of the screen and then click on Resize Photos from the right side of the screen.
  3. In Resize Photos, select a size for your photos that is comfortable for your computer screen and then click on OK to close XnView.
  4. To resume normal operations in XnView, click on File > Close or hit Esc key when you are finished resizing photos in Xn View.

After taking several dozen large, multi-megapixel photos, the last thing I want to do before uploading is manually shrink them. Rather than deal with long upload times, freeware application XnView comes to the rescue, batching resizes in a few easy steps.

Install XnView and navigate to your folder with your group of images. Select each one you intend to resize.

Once you have them selected, right-click and choose “Batch Processing” from the contextual menu.

You’re given this Dialog Box. It should list all of the images you want to batch edit—if it doesn’t you can add them here.

In order to save my originals, I pick a separate Output Directory from this same tab of this same Dialog Box.

You can see I have directed it to put the new images in this new, empty directory. You can also edit the “Overwrite” options, like I’ve done. Other helpful option is asking it to “Open output folder in Explorer.”

Click to the “Transformations” tab. We’re going to apply a “Resize” action. Click the highlighted “Add >” to use the action.

Click the radial marked with the “%” to resize your image by percent and then click the .

You have numerous options on the contextual menu that pops up.

I pick 25% of my original size, telling the program to also keep my ratio, ensuring my pictures don’t get distorted. Leaving my “Resample” on the default setting, I click “Go.”

XnView cranks through the files and resizes them.

XnView conveniently opens the folder with my newly shrunken images.

Here’s a quick comparison of the change in filesize of one of the random images. This set of images should be much easier to upload to Facebook, Blogger, or FTP to your personal site.

XnView is free software for viewing, editing, and batch editing image files. Download it for all versions of Windows, from Win 95 through Windows 7, here.