How Can Batch Manager Help?
There are numerous ways in which Batch Manager can save you time when editing photos. For example, if you have 5 photos that are consistently under-exposed, have a colour cast that needs removing, and need resizing for emailing to friends, editing each file manually with the same tasks and settings would be very repetitive and take some time to complete. With Batch Manager, you only need to select the task and settings once, then these can be applied to each photo automatically.

Before You Start
Before using Batch Manager, you should consider the number and size of files you want to edit, and whether your computer has sufficient memory or processing power to do all the tasks you want to carry out. If your photos are relatively small (eg 2MB jpeg files) you could probably open quite a few files and have no problems. However, if each file was a 15MB tiff file, trying to open 20 of these at the same time and then running all the editing tasks may give your computer problems. You may want to experiment and see what works best for you and your computer. If in doubt, start with a small number of photos, then do more if your computer copes ok with the demands placed on it.

Getting Started
To begin the process, open the files in PhotoImpact that you want to edit, then click Window on the standard toolbar and select Batch Manager (see screenshot right).

When the Batch Manager dialog box opens, a thumbail and file name is shown for each image currently open in PhotoImpact (see below, right).

Batch Manager Settings Select the images you want to work on, either by clicking the Select All button, or clicking individual thumbnail images (and holding [Ctrl] or [Shift] keys) to make multiple selections. Having done that, first select from the dropdown list which Category you wish to use, then select the operation you want applied to the selected thumbnails. In this example, the photos are being resized, so the Category setting is Adjust and the operation Resize.

As can be seen from the screen grab, options that appear in the Category menu are those available on the Standard Toolbar. This means you need some awareness of where appropriate options are normally found in PhotoImpact. If you are unsure, look at the options available in each menu before starting the Batch Manager process.

Completing Tasks
When all the selections have been made, clicking OK opens the dialog box of the selected operation, in this example, the Resize dialog box. Adjust the settings as required then click OK to perform the selected task on each of the photos.

If there are additional tasks you need to complete, simply select Batch Manager again from the Standard Menu toolbar and repeat the actions as above until all tasks are completed.

If you don't like the output from the Batch Manager operation, you can always right click the mouse and select Undo to go back to the previous image state.