I have about 300 photos that all need roughly the same degree of color correction and levels manipulation. Anyone know how to do this without my having to manually do it 300 times?
Yup, it’s easy! You just have to create an “action” then run a “Batch Process” using said action. An action is simply an automated playback of steps you recorded in adjusting an image file, repeated ad nauseam until all of the files you want altered are finished. If I had my copy of Photoshop on the computer, I’d tell you how to do it myself, but seeing as I don’t, check out this tutorial:
How to Create PhotoShop Actions
When you’re done creating your action, check out this super-quick tutor on how to create a “Batch Process”:
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Set up a macro of the alterations.
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Batch-run that macro on the image directory.
Macros in photoshop are called “Actions”, which you access via the “Window” menu. Open one image up, hit the “record” button on the Actions menu, give it a useful name, perform the color balance adjustment and resize, then hit “stop”.
Next, go to “Batch…” from the File menu, and choose the action and source directory, set the destination directory, and run the batch job. Bada bing.
More here (that’s for a Mac but it works the same for a PC).
One point though: Photoshop will only apply a resize to a specified edge. If you have mixed portrait and landscape images and want a “smart” resizing program that will choose the longest edge for resizing, try Picasa.
Wow, thanks guys! I’ve been using photoshop since 1995, but there are still a few little corners I’ve left unexplored. This is inspires me to go looking under things with a flashlight to see what else it can do that I’ve never done. Thanks again!
Batch processes are not “little corners”. 
It’s one of the most powerful features of PhotoShop.
I know, but I’ve never bothered with the mechanical side, so to speak. I spend all my time on the surface of the image, as it were, rather than behind the scenes. All the tools that manipulate the image, I can do in my sleep, and very very well thank you; you’d never detect my hand in an altered image, frinstance. But the background work, such as the manipulation of files, as opposed to pixels, I haven’t spent much time on. I’ll gonna try to find other blindspots and work on those as well, so I may be back with more pointers.