Is there a way to do an automatic LZW Compression of all existing images?

Question

Hi,
     I have spent quite some time trying various ways to compress entire folders of Canon images,  imported with the Canon Utility. Although they are TIFF,  seems some software utilities don't even offer "LZW compression". That would save half the disk space when the original TIFF files are all over 45 MB (Canon 50D). Certainly the Canon utility does not - probably because they didn't want to pay the TIF license fee.
     It would be nice if there was a CS5 script command to automatically replace a folder, or more, with LZW compressed images. In fact, there does not even seem to be a way to change the PS CS5 "General Presets" to always use LZW compression of files, if that is desired - it always reverts to NONE in the SAVE AS command. Haven't found any info in Help,  on where to change this.
     I did find some success using the "File->Scripts->Image Processing" function. However, for some strange reason, even though I specified that the LZW file be "SAVE in SAME Location", as the selected folder name - it still creates duplicate TIFF (LZW) images, properly compressed, in a sub folder named "TIF". Not only is this incorrect, but how did it choose that default name? Haven't found an explanation in Help.  That isn't all bad, just inconvenient, since this then requires extra work to copy folders back to the original image folder, delete the new TIFF subfolder, along with the usual warnings.
     I realize that all this inconvenience is a safeguard against accidental over writes, but I would like to have the option. Auto Compresion Conversion of files and folders should be a standard capability, as well as a standard Preset option.
Does anybody know of a safe and convenient program to Batch Process folders to automatically compress image files - in place, without opening each image?
Thanks,
Joe

Answer 1

Thanks for this lead - absolutely a gold find!
    I tried both of them, and I found the second script - " Picture
Processor III" - better suited to solving my problem.
    While they both can do the same thing - "LZW compressing" an
uncompressed set of image files" - Dr. Brown's version actually creates a
"duplicate" ... copy(1) file - in addition to the existing uncompressed file
, in the same directory (if selected). ,  just as PS CS5 does with an
unwanted & unexpected dummy folder. This may be a safer workflow, but just
adds more work in later going through all the subdirectories (if specified),
just to find, select, and erase all the originals after the process.
    PP-3, on the other hand, uses a temp file for compression, and then
replaces the original. The only quibbles is that PP3 doesn't keep the
"original creation date", which would have been useful in maintaining
records and to distinguish between images in the directory list.
Furthermore, unlike Dr. Brown's, it doesn't provide a "prefix/suffix" file
renaming option box, (when not replacing the original file) - but that
wasn't my original concern.
    Glad you provided links to both - I'll use PP3 most often, but if I need
to rename files, DB is a very good alternative, for that situation. I
particularly like the "ALL File Types" option, since that allows the easy
conversion of all camera types (e.g. Canon & Nikon) RAW files to LZW TIF,
in just one pass. That saves a lot of work.
Kudos to the script creator!
Joe