software recommendation request

[schmosef]

Hi,

I have to find a program that I can recommend for one of my customers to use.

He's a trademark lawyer and he files trademark applications via a government web site. The web site allows him to upload a TIFF file for his customers' logos.

He needs a utility that will allow him to crop images sent to him by his customers and then convert them to TIFF. Also, the government web site has a 1MB limit on the uploaded image so he needs to be able to resize the file as well. It would be terrific if the app/util told him the final size of the TIFF in the save/convert dialog screen because he's not very adept with Explorer and the fewer steps he has to follow the better.

I've looked at a few image converter apps but they don't seem to have cropping.

I'm leaning toward recommending something like Corel Paint Shop Pro or the Ulead Photo Impact but those apps are overkill and I'm concerned about his ability to handle them.

He's really a novice user and needs something basic.

Anybody know an app/util that they can recommend?

[Wombat]

Adobe Photoshop does all that. Maybe Photoshop Elements will?

[schmosef]

Thanks Wombat.

I'll evaluate the trial for PhotoShop Elements to see if it will do the trick. I'm concerned that it's probably too high end.

Anybody else have any suggestions?

[agallag]

Paint.NET - fully free and open source replacement for MS Paint. It's not really as simple as you're looking for, but it might do the job, and it's free.

http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/index.html

Paint.NET is image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Server 2003. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
It started development at Washington State University as an undergraduate senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple tool for photo and image editing. The programming language used to create Paint.NET is C#, with a small amount of C++ for setup and shell-integration related functionality.

[agallag]

In fact, the basic MS Paint can do everything you're asking for except for the file size in the save dialog. It might take a little training, but it's really not that hard.

[Dilitante1]

Picasa does it and for free (per website)
File types supported include:

Images: jpg, bmp, gif, png, psd, tif
Movies: avi, mpg, wmv, asf, mov (QuickTime)
RAW data files, including cameras from Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Minolta and Pentax.

Picasa's Basic Fixes are buttons that make it fast and easy to crop, remove red eye, fix the contrast and color, and enhance your digital pictures.

http://picasa.google.com/index.html

[agallag]

Picasa can't export to TIFF, it can only read them.

[Dilitante1]

ahh didnt say THAT

[Dr Mordrid]

The freeware IrfanView image viewer can crop to a selection and save/convert to *.tif, among a ton of other formats. It's also tiny. It can also do batch conversions/renames..

http://www.irfanview.com/

Dr. Mordrid

[Jon P. Inghram]

XnView too.

[Claymonkey]

another vote for Paint.NET the new version is very fast and easy to use. The only caveat that anyone might have is that it requires .NET framework to be installed.

[KeiFront]

Another vote for xnview it's easy to use free and supports a large range of formats.

[Whirl-Secret]

irfanview is only free for non-commercial use.

The Gimp will also do this job for free. I just taught someone in our marketing department how to crop / resize in 2 mins.

[Jessterw]

Not sure about Photoshop Elements, but given it has a lot of the other features of it's bigger sibling, it might be able to handle Actions, which, once setup with the necessary steps, are as a simple as running them as needed.

Too bad he's not on a Mac, there is an app that does just what you need, in addition to Apple's Automator app being capable of building scripts that can do much of it as well.

Ignoring that, I'd say IrfanView would be a good choice for something simple.