15-Minute Reviews :: ImageBadger Deluxe v4.5

Hello everyone and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is ImageBadger Deluxe version 4.5 by Kristanix Software – A batch image manipulator including format changes and lots of filters.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“ImageBadger is a cutting-edge batch processing and image conversion program which supports over 140+ image formats such as JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF, ICON, PSD. All features are available through command line calls.

Save time when working with a batch of images. Convert and process images from the Windows right-click menu. Easily resize/rotate images, enhance your images with more than 40 image filters, create icons, make thumbnail images and much more!”

Quick Pros

• Interface is very simple to use (Even though it is a bit childish)
• Explorer interface add-in very handy for launching application
• As fast as other applications I’ve tested in the past – Resulting quality good
• Large collection of filters and input/output formats
• Compression settings very powerful
• Command-line control

Quick Cons

• Thumbnail image could do to be bigger or offer a ‘tray window’ to show larger preview
• Can’t add an entire folder through Explorer interface
• Keep getting the Badger Song stuck in my head

Expansion

While the market for image resizers seems saturated with programs, there always seems to be more cropping up, trying to take a piece of this market. ImageBadger is no exception to this; However, it tries with a nice face and a lot behind it.

While at first I was already cringing at the screenshot on Giveaway of the Day and the title of the application, I was delighted by when I got into the application by the ease of use of this application. Drag and drop support; Screen organized into a logical and linear layout; The badger giving you ‘tips’ on what each button does (If the icons weren’t simple enough for you to figure out on your own); and much more makes this interface very easy. My two quips with the interface is that it looks almost too childish to take seriously by professionals even before trying, and the badger topology getting the evil Badger song stuck in my head again after so long. (No, it’s not in the application, just makes me think of that song.)

I found the Explorer add-in was very useful and didn’t bloat the memory on my system either. Being able to right-click on any of the file formats it supports (Or even a selection of files it support) – Which I must add its format support is massive, then you can either launch ImageBadger and add filters to those images, or convert to another file format right from the right-click menu. You can even change which file formats are available in the options of ImageBadger. The only aspect I do wish existed with the Explorer add-in was the ability to right-click any folder and it work its magic on the whole folder instead of forcing you to select all the files.

I tested the same folder as when I tested Media Resizer Pro (183 images) with 3 filters (Resize, rotate and gradient) and it plowed through it like a champ. It was very fast at doing the filtering, easily as fast as Media Resizer Pro (Sorry, no timings here.) It is fast enough to handle thousands of images within a short period of time, which is a plus. The resulting file quality is very nice as well; They came out looking very nice when I tried just a ‘quality’ change of my JPEG files. Something I found very fast is the powerful options for each file format; For example, the JPEG format allows you to choose from seven different compression formats including Lossless, YUV-formats and CieLAB-formats. .ICO files had the ability to resize the image by itself to a range of icon sizes too (Quick and dirty way of making favicon.ico) and more. There are a lot of formats (I mean a lot) that this application supports for input and for output. There are some I’ve never really even heard of. ( “WBMP: Wireless Bitmap for one”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBMP )

To quickly touch on the topic of filters and options; There is a lot of filter options; From the standard resize and crop, there is a lot of other color and image filters (Some which work very nice such as the ‘old newspaper’ filter – Not quite sepia.) I was impressed with the effort put into the filters and their variety. The Global Options/File Options offer you a lot of extra bits too, including how to handle the original files, altering of names and more.

Final Verdict

While the childish interface was a bit of a turn-away at first, once you start playing with the application and seeing what it all offers, you’ll find there is a lot there for individuals and professionals alike. While it may not have the watermark and styles that Media Resizer Pro offers (And I do wish it could also be used like JPEGCrops for work,) I do think this application does wonders for filters and supported file formats. For free, if you are in the market for an image batch application, I’d recommend grabbing this application while you can. Even for $19.95 for just the resize and crop, it is definitely worth it for professionals and individuals alike – You’ll find the control over the compression settings very useful for cutting down on your file sizes while maintaining quality. For command-line support and all of the filters, the whole application (At time of this review from the prices on the author’s ‘Buy Now’ page,) at $49.95 may be a hair steep, but still a good value, especially if you want to be able to command-line batch images.

Posted by BladedThoth on Tuesday, June 19, 2007