Compressing multiple images

Thanks for your suggestion. I like the Bridge solution but I think I'll also test the script just to compare results. Do you know if I can also use this for Bridge or is it PSE-only?

Short version: Someone else takes images, I correct the colors using a camera profile, then hand them over to a third person. I don't actually want to do fancy Photoshop editing stuff with them (the third person doesn't either), that's why I don't care about the xmp file. All I need is a rendered image with the correct colors that can be viewed with pretty much any image viewer (yes, even the Windows one) and CameraRaw did a good job in the trial version, that's why I bought the full PSE version.

The original RAF files are around 35mb each, if I export them as .tif or .png file, they double in size (more than 70mb each). You wouldn't really notice too much of a difference if you only had 10 images but I've got thousands (try doing "File - Save As" with that many...). LZW compression is lossless and it brings the files down to around 35mb again (still 24bit), which makes handling them much easier. Sure, I could probably export them as 2mb jpgs to make them take up even less space but that's not what the third party is asking for.

By @JJ5C39

Ok, then I won't discuss the choice of LZW compression tiffs for 8-bits versions. Note that to get the full information data of the raw file, you need 16-bits. What you call 24 bits is 3 RGB channels of 8 bits. Using the 16 bits setting of ACR would result in much bigger sizes. That's why ZIP compression would be better as explained by @Jeff Arola .

By far, the simplest batch process starts with editing by batches in ACR then clicking 'Done' as explained in my other posts. Using the xmp sidecar files does not double the size of your raw files as creating dngs would do. Applying the 'default' correction works surprisingly well to start each batch. Then, use the organizer and just 'export as new files' in the tiff format for even one thousand files batches as a night job. Yes, you get non compressed temporary tiff files, but you don't create useless dng files in the process.

Now, install the free Faststone Resizer which can convert big batches of non compressed tiffs into LZW tiffs.

When converted, you can safely delete the temporary full size tiffs.

I can do the first step (apply camera profile) in Camera Raw, which is part of Elements, just fine, it's just the actual saving/exporting part that I'm having problems with.

I'd rather not save the images as huge .tif files, then import them into another app just to export them again as a compressed version. The docs even mention LZW (scroll down to "File Compression"), so there has to be a way to do it for multiple images directly in Elements. Also, I don't want my images in the cloud (or did I mis-understand you?).

By @JJ5C39

I should have read your other discussion with Andrew Rodney ( @TheDigitalDog ). That shows that you need more explanations about what Elements can do for your project compared with the full Photoshop. What Andrew explains is valid for Photoshop but only partly for Elements.

The first difference is in the initial stage where you 'edit' your raw files. The ACR conversion and editing module is more limited in Elements, and many features of PS are not available if they can be processed normally after exiting the ACR module (Done, Open or Save). What is common in PS and PSE ACR is the editing process which does not change a single pixel of the original, but saves your corrections as metadata, the 'recipe'.

Most of the time, you can ignore the 'Save' option which only converts your raw file into a new universal raw format (DNG) combining the unchanged data plus the 'recipe'. You don't 'save as' nor 'convert to jpeg, tiff or...)

So, you are left with 'Done', which saves your 'recipe' as a very small text file called a sidecar file, with the same file name followed by the extension /xmp. No file in photo format is created (no 'rendered' file format). PSE and the organizer recognize this sidecar file so that they can create the correct rendition in memory for the normal pixel editor to process the image further and display the changes.

Or you choose 'Open', which opens a 'rendered' version in memory for further editing; that's what enables you to really 'save as' or 'convert to' any photo (not raw) format. In that process, you can open lets say 50 .RAF files and save them either individually or all together. If you select all those opened image in the process multiple files option of the editor, you can save them into the .tiff format. But the LZW compression is not available.

External tools like Faststone Resizer are apt to batch resize/compress any photo file format (not raw) very fast and with many options.

Bridge is similar in this respect, but it can read directly the raw files (.dng or .RAF+xmp) and batch process a folder or selection. Note that Bridge uses the PSE ACR version in your case, not the full PS ACR version.