Photo Magician is a batch image converter that has been designed with speed and performance in mind. The program can process a folder – and subfolders if the option is selected – at once. The developer states that Photo Magician can process a 50% image reduction of 1000 photos in 30 seconds. This speed depends on the computer used to convert the images, which means the speed may be faster or slower for some users.

The image converter divides the conversion into three steps. The input and output folder need to be selected in the first two steps, before the conversion options are defined in the third. These options are displayed in three tabs that are accessible in the main interface.

The profile tab defines how the photos and images of the input folder are processed. Available are device specific profiles (e.g. iPhone, iPod, High-definition TV, PSP or Zune), resolution specific profiles and a percentage profile to reduce the size by a specific percentage.

In addition, user specific profiles can be created in the Profile Editor. Here it is possible to create new profiles with specific width, height and percentage parameters. These profiles are then available in the profile selection pulldown menu next to the pre-configured profiles.

Additional conversion parameters are available under Conversion Settings. Here it is possible to include sub folders in the conversion, set the program to overwrite the original images, turn off image previews for faster conversions and to exclude images under a specific size.

Finally, it is possible to convert images to another format. Supported image formats are gif, jpg, bmp, png and tif. The program supports more input formats than those five output formats. Photo Magician supports Targa, PSD, RAW, DDS and PCX among others, and their output formats can be selected in the third tab.

Photo Magician comes with upload modules to Facebook and Flickr, which can be used to upload processed images to those two services. The user needs to log into Facebook or Flickr from within the application before the photos and images can be transferred though.

Photo Magician requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0. The program is compatible with most Microsoft Windows operating systems. The program is regularly updated with new features.

It could use a few additional options, like configuring an output image format’s compression settings and additional conversion options besides resolution changes.

The main interface of the program is divided into a profile and photos section. The program uses conversion profiles to convert the photos and images that are loaded into it. About a dozen profiles are already available after installation ranging from converting photos to jpeg thumbnails, true color png images or black and white tiff images.

Each profile consists of a set of operations, a target image format, a folder where the converted images are saved and file name manipulations. The option to create new profiles and alter existing ones is a very powerful way of configuring photo converting operations that need to be processed regularly. All it actually takes to convert photos with a specific profile would be to load the photos, select the profile and hit the start button in the software.

The most powerful part are the operations that can be added to each profile. It is possible to add one or multiple operations to the profile which ranges from resizing and rotating images to adding watermarks, color effects or profiles, page filters or brightness and contrast changes.

The strength of this is the ability to use multiple image converting and manipulation operations. It is for example possible to reduce all loaded photos by 50%, add a watermark image to the lower left using alpha blend and remove meta tags if those are stored in the original photos.

The program comes with a preview option to preview the profiles before they are saved and used.

Image Converter Plus supports batch conversion of images that are loaded into the interface. It is actually possible to load images or folders containing images into the application. The photo tab will display all photos and images that have been loaded into the program. Each image conversion can be previewed individually before all images are converted using the settings of the selected profile.

Another interesting option for professional use is command line support so that the program can be used in batch files.

Verdict

Image Converter Plus is a very powerful image converter that supports lots of image formats and operations that can enhance, change and convert images into an output format the user wants it to be in. The use of profiles make the image conversions less time consuming after the first initial configuration.

Christmas Giveaway

We have seven licenses of this powerful image converter. Please let us know what you would like to use the program for for a chance to win one of the licenses.

Raju is giving away licenses for Codeweaver’s Crossover today. Make sure to check it out if you are a Mac or Linux user.