Automating file preparation

After sometime of gloriously avoiding posting a web site I have come to an agreement with some freinds to do a joint website to show the u/w life of Thailand by dive site. I am quite adept with FP and DW and know this is going to be pain if a lot of pics have to be regulary processed and am now looking for ways to automate tasks, i.e. pic preparation - has anyone got any suggestions/tips for the following:

1. Automating pic preparation for a web site - i.e. batch processing a directory of pic files to a standard type, size, resolution, and adding of a watermark.

2. Automating the setting up of thumbnails and thumbnail galleries - i.e. putting a directory of pic files through a batch command to thumbnail, create HTML page for viewing, include basic controls and create second HTML page for viewing full pic. PS7 has this facility but the finished product looks pretty rough.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Chris

1. Try DeBabelizer Pro. I guess Photoshop can do this too, but I find that its batch processes aren't as flexible. That, or I haven't learned how to use them very well yet.

2. Breezebrowser works well for this, with customizable templates. I actually also use it to do what you want to do in step #1. My own workflow involves oversharpening in photoshop and saving to a staging directory at full resolution. I then use Breezebrowser to resize the entire staging directory (no additional sharpening), which involves resizing, thumbnailing, watermarking, and creating html from my own custom templates.