There is only one mandatory parameter to start converting: choosing the output directory where all your converted
images will be saved.
Then, you can choose one of the following output formats: JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, TIFF, GIF, BMP, WBMP, TARGA, PPM, PGM, PBM, XPM, ICO, SVG, PS, EPS and PDF.
JPEG is the most popular lossy format for sharing digital photographs on the internet also used by default by many digital cameras.
JPEG 2000 offers much better compression, but demands more computational resource and is generally less popular. It can be impressive to see how many pictures it is possible to backup at quite high quality on a CD or DVD.
PNG is a lossless image format useful for graphics and diagrams which should not suffer any compression artefacts.
GIF is another popular and lossless internet image format, but is limited to 256 colors.
TIFF is also a lossless image format popular in the world of photo editing. If you do shoot JPEGs with your camera, you should consider convert them as TIFF for edition when you plan to repeatedly save the file to avoid the lossy JPEG compression discarding information every time.
TARGA, BMP, WBMP, PPM, XPM are various lossless image formats that can eventually be useful depending on your needs. PGM is limited to grayscale colors while PBM to black&white.
ICO are used for application icons and cannot be larger than 128x128 pixels.
SVG is a vector image format that uses geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes instead of pixels to represent images.
PS and EPS are postscripts format. They are often used for publishing purposes.
PDF is the popular format developed by Adobe inc.
Additionally the following image formats are readable for conversion:
RAW: your camera may offer the option of saving Raw files. A raw file is a digital negative, it isn't processed in-camera and so is as accurate a recording of the scene as possible. They offer maximum control for further processing and should be preserved. These files are also large and slow to open and therefore unpractical for every day viewing. A conversion is then often recommended before being able to open them with your favorite image viewer. The following file extensions are supported: mrw,crw, cr2, orf, dcr, arw, dng, 3fr, erf, kdc, sr2, raf, x3f,nef, pef, raw, drf, mef, mos, ptx, srf, thm.
PSD: Adobe Photoshop
CUT: Dr. Halo: *.cut
G3: Raw Fax format CCITT G3
DDS: DirectDraw Surface
IFF: Amiga IFF
PCX: Zsoft Paintbrush PCX bitmap format
PCD: Kodak PhotoCD
KOA: Commodore 64 Koala format
SGI: Silicon graphics SGI image format
RAS: Sun rasterfile
JNG: JPEG Network Graphics
MNG: Multiple Network Graphics
An estimation calculates automatically the size of your converted photos.
In the case of JPEG or JPEG 2000 conversion, you can set a quality setting. At 100, the quality is maximum and the compression minimum and at 0 the quality is minimu and the compression is maximum. A trade-off of 75 is usually a decent choice.
When converting to JPEG, JPEG 2000 or TIFF, the converted images can embed EXIF/IPTC/XMP metadatas which can be found in the originals photos. If this checkbox is checked, the metadatas will be preserved. This is almost always a good thing to
preserve metadatas, so if you are in doubt you can just keep it checked.
If you disactivate the checkbox "Do convert to format", then no conversion will occur. This is useful when you wish to only batch rename or organize your pictures without modifying them.
